


And The Wounded Sing

by Wynn



Series: That Which You Seek [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Adult Language, Angst, Background Relationships, Bucky is MESSED UP, But also friendship, Depression, Disconnection with time, Disturbing Memories, Disturbing dreams, F/M, Guilt, Healing, Includes my headcanon of Bucky being a Howard Stark fanboy, Minor Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson, PTSD, Romance, Support
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-30
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-15 08:25:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 90,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2222256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wynn/pseuds/Wynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set two weeks after the end of "That Which You Seek."</p><p>Bucky succeeded in his mission. He remembers who he was and what he's done. Now he struggles to tread the waters of his churning mind, his thoughts no longer moored in time. Darcy, Steve, and the rest of the team attempt to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Upon realizing that I did *not* need an opening chapter of 7000 words, but that I could divide it in two, I've decided to start posting. I'm hoping that, with 3 parts already done and work on the 4th begun today, I can stay ahead of the game, even with work. Updates will occur every 1 1/2 to 2 weeks, unless I fall behind and then it's the interminable wait for me to finish.
> 
> I may modify the warnings in the tags, but this is Bucky so all of his standard issues apply. There's no violence, but the memory of violence and violent dreams. Also, there are psychological issues out the wazoo, so be forewarned.
> 
> Title a lyric from "Ghost in the Machine" by The Fire and the Sea.
> 
> General disclaimer: I do not own these characters. They belong to Marvel and are used for non-profit, entertainment purposes only.
> 
> I must say thank you again to everyone who left comments and kudos for "That Which You Seek" (and my other Bucky/Darcy stories to). I haven't been able to respond to each one like I have in the past, but I appreciate them so much, so thank you, and I hope you like the sequel!

And The Wounded Sing  
Part One

 

“Say cheese!”

“What?”

But Darcy doesn’t explain. She just holds out her arm and a second later something like a camera shutter sounds. Then the photographer lowers the camera, and Bucky heaves a sigh, shifting beside Steve. The war machine demanded, so the war machine took, snatching their faces and their friendship with each click of the shutter. Bucky clenches his jaw and tries to focus on the photographer again, but behind him, he sees Dum Dum duck down and gather a clump of mud in his hands. A smile starts to stretch across his face as Dum Dum inches up on Falsworth, pristine in his— 

“Oh, yeah. That’s going on the wall.”

Bucky blinks, seventy years passing in the brief closing of his eyes. Darcy stands beside him now, rather than Steve, and they’re in her apartment in Avengers Tower, not the mud fields of war fatigued France. He stays still and tries to calm the racing of his heart. Darcy bends over her phone, a broad smile on her face. The sight soothes Bucky, it eases the tension ratcheting within him and grounds him in the here and now. 

“What is?” he asks.

She turns toward him and holds out her phone. He glances down at the screen, sees Darcy in half the frame, the same broad grin on her face as she leans into the figure in the other half. The man there frowns as he looks at her, his face nearly obscured by a bushy beard and long, tangled hair.

It takes Bucky a long moment to realize that the man with the hair is him.

He doesn’t know when he last saw his reflection, not the specific year, but he knows it was still early, his hair relatively short, not Army reg but not the scraggly mess of now. One of the first times they put him in cryo then. Maybe the first, he doesn’t know, but he watches. In the glass, he watches his body freeze. The cold sets in, and his eyes widen. He lifts his hand and tries to move, but he can’t, and panic sets in as he remembers the eighth grade and Becky Johnson in the apartment below his with her bird in its cage, pale yellow wings battering the bars as it tried to—

“Bucky?”

He starts, his eyes snapping up to meet Darcy’s. Her grin is gone, replaced by warm eyes and a creased brow, and he hates it when she looks at him like that, when Steve does too, because it means that he’s slipped again, that he’s lost his footing in the roiling churn of his mind.

Swallowing hard, he shrugs and tries to summon a smile. “Sorry. Didn’t recognize myself.” The response deepens the frown on her face, so he continues before she can comment. “What’s the wall?”

Darcy narrows her eyes. He knows she’s contemplating whether to follow the former comment despite his addition of the latter. He estimates his chances at 60/40, Darcy usually more willing than Steve to abandon the two dreaded words: “You okay?” Bucky hates the question, the two words and their infinite variations as steady a presence during the past two weeks as Steve and Darcy themselves. When he stares out the window, “What’s up, Buck?” When he frowns at the coffee maker, “Everything okay?” When he doesn't sleep, “Do you want to talk about it?” He finds lying to Darcy harder than lying to Steve, so he doesn’t usually, spitting out an answer through gritted teeth. 

Now though, he doesn’t need to, something in his face convincing Darcy to relent. He’s not sure what. He can’t control his expression anymore, too much turbulence within for him to restrain.

“It’s something that holds up a building,” she says, her brow still creased.

Bucky cocks a brow at her, and her grin returns, though not as bright as before. Still, he latches onto it, to the reprieve that she gives him. His smile comes with less effort this time, though his face feels stiff. The stiffness must not show, or Darcy also lets that go, for she turns for her bedroom then, tilting her head for him to follow. He does, Darcy now one of the fixed points around which he orbits. He knows that’s why she let Thor and Jane return to London to pack her belongings for her. Darcy told him that she stayed because of her collarbone and for Tony too, already, allegedly, becoming a diva of a boss. A clever lie, one he allowed because it kept her close, it kept his anchors secure and his world from splitting apart. 

A sliver of guilt darts through him. He doesn’t remember being this selfish before, but before he had and for so long he hadn’t. He’s swung wildly back in the other direction, a frantic pendulum clutching on with desperate hands. 

In her room, they weave around the unpacked boxes to stand before the bare bed, the mattress and box spring pristine and blinding white. 

“That,” Darcy says, pointing before them, “is the wall.”

Bucky glances where she points, at the wall opposite the end of the bed, the one perpendicular to the windows and shared with living room. He stares at it a moment before turning to her and raising his other brow. “So it is.”

Darcy ignores his sass, moving instead to stand before the wall. “Soon,” she says, waving her left hand around, her right still bound by her sling, “all of this will be covered.”

“With what?”

“Postcards, pictures. Including yours,” she adds, pointing to her phone. “Ticket stubs, drawings, bookmarks. Whatever appeals. Whatever’s… me.” She turns away from him to stare up at the blank surface. Bucky waits out her quiet, sensing revelation. He soaks up each disclosure she gives to him, settling the pieces that she shares into his cracks and gaps. He knows he shouldn’t. A better man wouldn’t, but death long ago killed the better man in Bucky, so he takes what she’s willing to give and tries not to push for more.

“I do it wherever I go,” she says after another moment, her voice soft. “I pick a wall and make it me. I guess I don’t need to now. I can put all this on Instagram or Tumblr, but— I don’t know. Old habits, I guess. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid.” 

Darcy looks down and he can see the edge of a wry grin on her face. Bucky wants all of it, but if she wanted to share it with him, she would have turned. “It used to drive my dad nuts, how many holes I would put in the wall to tack things up.” She looks back at him now, the wry shade to her grin shifting to a mischievous tint. “Seems right to do the same to Tony.”

He nods, unsure how to respond to any mention of Tony, now that he remembers. He looks again at the wall and tries to imagine Darcy on the bland beige paint. She’ll probably cover the beige with colors, with life. His bristly frown seems out of place there, a dark cloud on a sunny day. He used to smile, he remembers doing so, to dames and his ma and, always, to Steve, who needed to smile more, too serious now, so focused on joining the goddamned Army so he could go off and get himself killed. Bucky tilts his chair back and launches into a complicated pantomime of his boss going apoplectic at some stunt Hardin pulled, waiting for the smile, waiting, waiting, and grinning when it comes, bright in his pale—

“You should make one.”

Bucky controls himself this time, he doesn’t jump, he just shifts his gaze over to Darcy, who faces him now. Despite his efforts, he’s dulled her too, the mischief gone and the concern again in her eyes. But it’s the determination lifting her jaw that freezes him. Bucky stares at her for half a second before he understands. She wants him to make his own wall. His pulse jumps at the thought of an entire wall devoted to him, the frowning brute from the photo staring down at him. Maybe he could still evade, if he explained. Darcy always wanted him to use his words, so he tries now, carefully. 

“I don’t have anything for a wall.”

“You’ll get stuff,” she says, digging in. “Everybody gets stuff.”

The Soldier never did, but he doesn’t say this. He doesn’t want her to be sad.

“It doesn’t have to be a whole wall,” she says in his silence, moving toward him, hopeful now. “We can get a little corkboard to start. Oooh—” She twists back around and actually starts to bounce with excitement. “Do you think Tony would make the whole wall corkboard? Because that would be _awesome_.”

Bucky jumps on her distraction and tries not to sigh in relief. “Maybe. He said it was yours, didn’t he? Decorate however you wanted.”

Darcy doesn’t respond. She just turns back around, grinning again, giddy at all of the ways she could and would make Tony suffer for his lax decorating policies.

“Come on,” she says. “Let’s go unpack. I need to plan what else I can do that’ll make Tony cry.”

*

That night he wakes to the smell of blood. It’s not the first time. For some of them, real blood accompanied, his own or his victim’s. For others, like now, the memory simply overpowered him, so much that he feels it on his skin, trickling down his throat, gumming in his hair.

Breathing in, Bucky opens his eyes. The trench he nearly died in lingers before him. His first battle in the war, nothing that Basic could prepare for, nothing that the stories from the vets in his unit could adequately describe. The man beside him— Longman— had died looking at Bucky, blood spurting from his mouth as he pitched forward, his hands scrambling for any sort of hold, for any grip at life. He’d been shot in the back while he pissed himself in fear. Or maybe it had been Bucky who pissed himself in fear, dirty and broken, crouched in a dirty, broken world.

Breathing in again, he pushes up off the floor. Night still darkens the city beyond the windows. The clock by his bed reads 4:38. An hour and a half this time. He might try again when the sun rises, might curl up in the armchair in the living room and drift off to the brightening of the sky and wait for Steve to wake him with the more pleasant smell of toast and bacon. 

For now, he crosses to the bathroom and switches on the sink. Bending over the basin, he scrubs the sweat from his face and the back of his neck. The cool water douses the dream and brings him fully back to the present. When his fingers dig into his beard, Darcy’s picture flashes before him. His eyes dart to the mirror, but they skitter away before he sees more than a gleam of teeth in the dark and the shine of his hand as it moves through his beard. He hadn’t looked in a mirror straight since his return, hadn’t looked in the glass since that first horrific time. What would he see if he did? The bearded man from the photo, the one with Darcy and Steve and a hope for a chance now, or would he see his own gaunt face reflected in the glass of a cryo tube, everything after he dove for Steve in the river nothing more than a desperate, dying dream.

The toilet lid cracks as he slams it back to throw up the thought and the pizza that he’d eaten with Darcy.

*

The day that Bucky had moved from the medical wing to the apartment he shared with Steve he’d catalogued the possessions that everyone designated as his. Clothes included his boots, combat pants, and armor, three pairs of socks and three of underwear (most of them given to him by Steve), two shirts, both tees (one from Steve and one from Thor), as well as the sweatpants and hoodie from Darcy. For weapons, he had the broken shock prod (whereabouts unknown), his knife (on his person at all times), and six guns (one with Steve, the rest in the armory somewhere in the Tower).

The room that Steve said belonged to him contained objects prior to his arrival, and Steve said that those belonged to him too: three walls painted a pale blue and a floor-to-ceiling bank of windows, an empty closet and a gleaming bathroom, a bed that he avoids with a table and a lamp he never turns on, and a chair by the windows that he slept in once (abandoned for the one in the living room, the sun rising on that side of the building). 

More than he had for seventy years, the asset owning nothing, not even himself.

Sergeant Barnes had all the accoutrements of war but none of life: dogtags and sergeant stripes, a sniper’s rifle and regulation pistol, three uniforms including his specially constructed kit for the Commandos, combat boots, liquor (occasionally), letters (until his capture), and a cot and a tent that he sometimes shared with Steve.

Bucky had owned more, items slowly accumulated over the first two decades of his life and then obsessively cared for. In the shower that morning, he had tried to remember the first object that belonged to him, settling, in the end, upon a stuffed bear, which, he decided, he’d never tell Darcy about, she needing no more encouragement in her persistence to call him bear. The bear had disappeared by the time Bucky became Sergeant Barnes, replaced by books and magazines (he recalls Homer and Hemingway and a small collection of _Astounding Science Fiction_ ) and a radio that was always on whenever he was home. Bucky had a photograph of his family given to him by his mother the day he moved out to live with Steve, and he remembers hanging it next to a drawing given to him by Steve for his nineteenth birthday, one of the two of them somewhere, he can’t remember now.

He tries to follow the thread, to visualize the bedroom that he shared with Steve, but the image slips from his grasp, wrenching to the side to focus instead on Steve’s half of their room. More drawings hung there, of Steve and his ma, another of Steve and Bucky, and half a dozen of the city that birthed them, that shaped them and haunted him endlessly as he froze. 

The itch to return there rises within him again. He understands why he can’t go to Brooklyn now, not with Hydra in pursuit and his ability to fight balanced on his cracked and heaving mind. But he wants to see the bridge and the river and the piers and the little park that Steve went to so he could try to get a better handle on the color green. He wants to so much his heart races and his breath comes fast, so before he can consider beyond his need, Bucky is on his feet and moving across the hall to the entrance to Steve’s room.

The door is open as it always is, though the one to Steve’s bathroom is closed and the shower on beyond. A few boxes line the walls, Steve’s possessions from D.C. arriving late the week before, packed by a man Steve called Sam. The room resembles his own, but bigger, with two walls of windows and different furniture, but Bucky bypasses everything except the pictures and photos on the right wall. Color distinguishes the present from the past. Despite his need, his eyes linger on the present ones, clustered together in a shining silver frame. He sees one of Steve with the Widow; she wears a fond expression and a bright orange tee bearing the words “I’m with Stupid” and an arrow that points straight at Steve. There’s another of her and Steve with a second man wearing a bandage on his nose and the bearing of a spy. Bucky recognizes Thor and Steve in London, and the doctor here in a kitchen in the Tower sharing a pot of tea with Steve.

The older ones, though, snatch his breath and send his heart rate spiking again. A gorgeous portrait of Peggy sits in a burnished oval frame beside a drawing of Steve’s ma, different from the one that hung on the wall of their old apartment, this one likely rendered after his resurrection. Candid shots of the Commandos inhabit their own frame, but it’s a small strip of pictures tucked in the bottom right corner that has Bucky reaching out. July weather made their collars wilt and skin shine with sweat, but it hadn’t dimmed the smiles on their faces, Bucky and Steve at Coney Island to celebrate Steve turning twenty. He had set aside extra money for two months, wanting to make a day of it, this Steve’s first birthday since the death of his ma. Steve had tried to talk him out of it when Bucky told him of his plan, citing his need to work, summer more forgiving on his lungs than winter, but Bucky had won out in the end, and looking at him now, flushed from the sun and a double helping of hot dogs, Bucky knows he was—

The soft thud of the shower door brings Bucky out of himself. He clutches the photo-strip in his hand; Steve moves in the bathroom. Darting forward, Bucky tries to replace the photos in the corner of the frame. As he does, he catches sight of his reflection in the glass. His hair is wilder than usual, matching the panic in his eyes. His hand stills at the sight, freezing his present self beside his past. The disparity between the two hits him like a freight train, like a punch from his own left arm. 

How had he ever been that happy?

How? 

_How?_

The vision wavers, hot tears in his eyes, as Bucky turns and flees from the room.

*

He hears the music before he even opens the door, if what assaults his ears can even be called music. Easing inside Darcy’s apartment, a cacophony of sound blasts him. There’s a man— no, multiple men— singing— no, speaking— no, yelling— about sabotage and a water gate. The beat shifts and the strings crunch; Bucky never would have thought that instruments could make those sorts of sounds when everything stops for three seconds. Then the strumming comes back in, and he hears Darcy and someone else yell from her bedroom. The men yell too, and Bucky tenses at it all, his hand inching toward his knife as he inches toward her room, then the music abruptly stops again and he does too, his heart pounding in his chest.

From inside her bedroom, he hears Darcy groan. “Jarvis, my man. That was the best part.”

“Apologies, Ms. Lewis. But Sergeant Barnes is here to see you.”

Bucky grits his teeth at the voice from nowhere, but before he has time to react further, Darcy barrels out of her room, sliding on the wood floor in sock feet. He slips his knife back into its holster with his left hand and reaches for Darcy with his right, grabbing her just as she’s about to tip over onto the floor. She uprights, grinning, latching onto his arm for balance. Bucky takes the moment she uses to catch her breath to take her in. She wears her hair pulled back and her glasses now. The bright green of her t-shirt nearly blinds him, but she’s warm beneath his palm and soft, and he used to be like this, he saw it in the photos, he used to be happy and safe and whole, and he thought that the chair would fix him, that he’d be stable again and that he could be, that he could be, but he can’t, he can’t, he can’t even—

He tenses as Darcy wraps her arm around him and moves in for a hug, but then he’s moving too, drawing her close, his lungs shuddering as he tries to breathe. She twists her head to the side and presses it against his chest. Her arm tightens around him, her finger clutching his hoodie. Bucky closes his eyes and rests his chin on the top of her head; he lets the scent of her shampoo and the feel of her hair against his face still the roiling mess inside of him. 

“You can hug me with your left arm, too, you know. There’s no sweater danger this time.”

Bucky tenses again. In his hesitation, Darcy pokes at his arm with her right elbow. He lifts his arm out of her reach. 

She huffs out a small sigh against his chest. “Dude—”

“No.” 

“Come on,” she wheedles. “One of us should be hugged properly. I don’t get this torture device off for another two weeks.”

He finds himself starting to smile, the other constant the past few weeks aside from Steve, Darcy, and their constant questions of concern about his state of mind being Darcy’s complaints about her sling. “Then we wait two weeks,” he says, breathing her in.

She expels another sigh, but relents, relaxing against him. “Fine. But this is just further proof, you know.”

At her comment, his smile widens, but he conceals the amusement in his voice. “No, it isn’t.”

“Yes, it is.” She tilts her head up to look at him. Bucky wipes the smile from his face, dredging up something resembling a glare, which just brings the grin back to hers. “It’s alliterative, dude. That makes it law.”

“Does it?” he asks, raising a brow. “So does that mean you’re a duck? A dinosaur? Darcy the dingo?”

“If I start howling at the moon and eating cats, then you can call me dingo. Until then, bear, it’s Darcy.”

Bucky smirks at her and preps for a response, but a sound from her bedroom, the scrape of a shoe on the floor, stops him. He’d forgotten about the second voice, the one who had yelled along with Darcy to the song. 

“It’s just Tony,” she says now. “He said yes to the wall of cork and came to take a few measurements. He’s probably, like, three seconds from detonation at trying to be quiet for so long.”

There’s an indignant squawk from the bedroom followed a second later by the man himself, Tony strolling out with a tape measure in his hands. Bucky extricates himself from the hug, sidestepping Darcy as she tries to reach for him.

“The cork monstrosity isn’t up yet, Lewis. You still need to be nice to me.”

Darcy scrunches up her face in concentration before shaking her head. “That’s not why you hired me.” 

“I was drunk when I hired you.”

Darcy grins at him. “So clearly all your decisions should be made while you’re blitzed because that’s when the good ones happen.”

“Debatable,” Tony mutters, tossing the tape measure from hand to hand. He pauses and his body grows tense, and Bucky knows he’s about to turn to him, to try to talk, to expect conversation in return. His mouth goes dry and his pulse accelerates. The urge to run rises within him, but he tamps down on it, feeling Darcy watching.

“Kid said she was trying to talk you into one of these wall sores.”

Bucky nods, keeping his gaze fixed on the floor. He tries not to think about Howard.

“How do you not like this?” Darcy asks Tony. “A whole wall that’s devoted exclusively to you? That’s like your wettest wet dream.”

“Not if it’s made of cork, it isn’t.” 

Bucky bites down on the inside of his cheek and closes his eyes.

“What would suit your delicate sensibilities then? Velvet?”

“Gross, Lewis. I may have lived through the 70s, but I’ve still got taste.”

Howard eyes the drab military fabric some underling holds before him a moment before sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose. At the sigh, the underling starts to sweat. Bucky tries not to smile, the man just doing his job, or trying to, but Howard launches then into a gesticulating rant about image and taste and how he’s about to break out in hives just looking at that godawful fabric so there’s no way in hell they can clothe Captain America’s best friend in it so would the underling be so kind as to take that heinous cloth out back and blow it up with a—

“Bucky?”

He lurches back with a gasp. “Sorry. I’m—” He looks up, locks eyes with Howard— with Tony, who stares at him, his brow creased and mouth a thin, flat line. Gaze darting back to Darcy, he says, “I… I— I have to go.”

He turns though she calls and strides for the door, the lock clicking closed on her curse as he walks away.

*


	2. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week was long and exhausting. I know I'm craving some sleep and good Wintershock fanfic, so I will go on the assumption that others do too. Here's the second half of the original behemoth known as part one. Thank you to everyone who left comments and kudos on the first part. I feel spoiled and grateful and giddy at the amazing responses. Thank you, and enjoy!

And The Wounded Sing  
Part Two

 

Two days later, Bucky shuffles into the apartment to find them waiting for him on the coffee table before Steve— a corkboard, a camera, and a small photo printer. 

Steve looks up from his place on the couch as Bucky walks in, his chest heaving from the run up the stairs and the workout before, his daily attempt to exhaust his mind into quiet. His muscles burn, but his mind still whirs, his thoughts pounding in time to the beat of his heart. A plate of toast and mug of coffee sit before Steve, on the table beside the printer box. He watches Bucky, waiting for him to acknowledge the new additions to their small world, but Bucky simply dumps his workout gear beside the couch and turns for the kitchen.

Steve calls after him. “Darcy left them for you.”

Bucky grunts but gives no other response. In the kitchen, he opens a cabinet and reaches for a glass for water. Like the bedrooms, the space in the kitchen overwhelms him. He’d existed in a tube for seventy years and before that in barracks housing dozens of men slotted into row upon row of cots like sardines. Another apartment existed on their floor, one, he supposes, that had been intended for him, but he had no idea what he’d do with an entire apartment of his own, and he thinks that Steve feels the same, though he’d had one in D.C., one that Bucky destroyed when he shoots his target through the walls. He waited three hours on the roof of the nearby building, moving only to shift the scope of his rifle to peer through another window. Shifting to the right, he pulls the trigger again. Gravel bites into his knees and pokes at his belly, tender beneath the armor from the punishment he’d received for his earlier failure. He had let the target escape before, despite the warnings he’d received about his cleverness, striding too slowly toward the—

“She said she’d be back—”

Bucky jumps, torn from the past. The glass falls from his hand, rebounds off the counter and smashes onto the floor. He wrenches the steering wheel from the car, his bullets failing to find their mark. A gun fires inside, likely from the Widow, aiming for him, and he turns, running across the roof and leaping onto the—

“Bucky!”

Bucky starts again. Steve’s pushed him back, though he’s the one who’s barefoot, away from the glass littering the floor and into the small eating area. He didn’t even feel Steve touch him. He doesn’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing, eventually settling on good, the touch grounding him, Steve’s grip on his shoulders hard enough to bruise someone else. Steve peers at him now, the weight of his gaze settling Bucky even more, until his brow creases with concern. Then Bucky tenses, evading Steve’s gaze, staring at the broken glass instead.

“Sorry. I’m sorry—”

“I don’t care about the glass,” Steve says, his voice firm. “Are you okay? Did it cut you?”

Bucky swallows. He closes his eyes and focuses on his body, on his legs, trying to pinpoint pain, inured as he is now to the sensation. He feels nothing other than the lingering burn from his workout so he shakes his head and feels Steve’s grip ease on his shoulders.

“Do you—”

“No.”

There’s silence. After a few moments of it, Bucky opens his eyes. He finds Steve’s mouth in a flat line at the curt reply, and he expects a push, but it doesn’t come. What does is the crease between Steve’s brows, making Bucky pull away. He walks back into the kitchen, his steps stiff, and grabs the broom and dustpan from the small closet in the corner. Steve watches him, Bucky can feel the concern radiate from him, burning hot like he does now, like Bucky tries but fails to do.

“What did Darcy say?” he asks as he crouches to sweep up the mess.

Steve says nothing. Bucky waits him out and tries not to feel gravel beneath his boots rather than the smooth kitchen floor. Thirty seconds pass, long enough for him to gather the glass and dump it into the trashcan below the sink, before Steve abandons the fight and responds.

“She said you were supposed to hang the corkboard and have a picture printed and posted before she returned.”

Bucky nods. He returns the broom and dustpan to the cupboard, retrieves a plastic cup from the cabinet, and fills it with water from the sink. He drinks it down, repeats the process two more times, all the while Steve watching him, waiting for clarification, demanding it for this since Bucky denied it to him before. But he won’t ask, not outright, Steve still a stubborn bastard, as proud and pig-headed as he was good and right. 

“I’m supposed to have a wall,” Bucky says after his fourth glass.

“A wall?”

Bucky nods again. “To put pictures on. And other stuff. I don’t know what since all I have are these clothes, a knife, and six guns.”

Steve’s quiet again, long enough that Bucky glances at him from the corners of his eyes. He expects frustration or anger to greet him, but a look of keen contemplation regards him instead. “That’s not all you have,” Steve says as he ducks his head.

Bucky tries for a smirk. “I don’t think a metal arm and a head full of mush really count as possessions, Steve.”

The absolute silence lets Bucky know that he fucked up. He chances a glance at Steve. The sad-eyed and sober gaze that greets him takes him by surprise. “It was a joke,” he says, turning away, dumping the cup into the sink and trying to ignore the worried stare behind him.

But Steve won’t let him. “No, it wasn’t.”

The old Bucky— the whole Bucky—may have been able to restrain the sigh. He remembers doing so hundreds of times growing up, flattening his mouth and slowing his breathing, seeking calm in the face of Steve’s wounded pride. Now he can’t, so he sighs, loud and long, and walks away. 

“Bucky—”

“It’s my goddamned brain, Steve. I can talk about it however the hell I want.”

Now Steve sighs, a small one, a tired one. “That’s not—”

But Bucky doesn’t let him finish. He strides from the kitchen, down the hall to his room without another word. There he slams his door shut. Or he tries to, wanting to be petty, to make a point, but in his rage he doesn’t think, so he swats back at the door with his left hand. The door plows through the frame and wrenches free from its hinges, flying out into the hall and crashing into the wall to Steve’s bedroom. The knob pierces the plaster and the door hangs, quivering, about a foot off the ground.

Bucky closes his eyes at the sight, his chest heaving. “ _Shit_.”

He waits for the sigh, for the sign of continued disappointment, but when Steve stops at the end of the hall, all he says is, “Darcy said you should _have_ a wall, Buck. Not break one.”

“Shut up.”

Steve chuckles at the weak comeback. Something in Bucky’s chest loosens at the sound and he finally breathes. He does so as Steve shuffles away, back to the living room, where he gathers his dishes. “You want eggs?” he calls back. “I’m still hungry.”

Bucky focuses on breathing another moment then the door slips from the wall and clatters down to the floor with a resounding crash. Shaking his head, he opens his eyes and carefully avoids the door as he makes his way back down the hall.

“Yeah, Steve. Eggs sound great.”

*

“Dude. I said you should _have_ a wall, not—”

Bucky groans and flops his head back against the couch. Breakfast had been eaten, dishes had been washed, showers had been taken, and now bees hum on the TV, the latest nature doc on display. Bucky doesn’t complain, the docs mostly tranquil, without the harsh world of man to trigger more of his memories.

Steve starts to laugh, stifling it, or trying to, when Bucky glares at him. Darcy pokes her head around the wall, frowning as she takes the two of them in. 

“What’s so funny?”

Steve glances at her, his eyes bright with mirth. “I made the same joke.”

The smile that Darcy sends them warms Bucky. He responds in turn, his mouth curving up, at least until Darcy says, “Right on,” and makes her way back to the couch to fist bump Steve. He returns the gesture, gleeful, grinning at Bucky and making Bucky sigh again and shake his head.

Darcy plops down onto the couch between them. “Sigh all you like, Bucky bear. We know you love us.”

He does, as much as he can. How can he not? Without them, he’d be lost. He’d be nothing. But the moment is light, so he tries to keep it light, eyeing her sidelong as he grumbles, “Not if you keep calling me bear.”

She reaches up and tugs lightly on the end of his beard. He resists the urge to lean in to the touch. “If the name fits…” 

Bucky ducks away, feeling six years old again, running from his ma and her hairbrush. Beyond Darcy, he sees Steve smirking at him, and he casts Steve another glare but he’s distracted from sniping at him when Darcy says, “You didn’t open the camera.”

“No. I broke my door.” 

Darcy arches a brow. “For two hours?”

“Yes.”

The sigh she issues forth puts his prior one to shame. Bucky stiffens against it, against her, against the whole harebrained scheme he thought he’d evaded. 

“Bucky—”

“I don’t want to, okay? Is that all right?”

Steve tenses, but Darcy’s calm in the face of his belligerence. “It is,” she says, “if you give me a reason why you don’t want to. And ‘Because’ is not a reason. That’s just mulish obstinacy.”

Her words process and Bucky raises his brows. “Did you just call me an ass?”

Darcy sends him a sunny smile. “Not yet.”

Steve snorts, shrugging when Bucky glares at him again. But the set of his shoulders belies his amusement, Steve worried about a repeat of that morning’s performance.

“Look,” Darcy says, drawing their attention back toward her. “Did you or did you not make it your mission to give the proverbial fuck you to Hydra by becoming you again?”

Bucky stays silent. He’d show her mulish obstinacy.

His scowl, though, rebounds off Darcy like water off a duck. “I’ll take that as a yes.” Leaning over, she places her hand on his head, her touch light as she gives him a gentle squeeze. “And did you or did you not say that there were a lot of you’s shoved in this scowly head of yours?”

He did. He had. He’d said both as he struggled to articulate the madness in his mind. But he says nothing now, just crosses his arms over his chest and slumps down against the couch.

“Another yes,” Darcy says, releasing his head. She leans toward the table and tries to snag the camera box one-handed. She fumbles, and Bucky feels the pull to help, but he also feels the pull to hurl the camera at the wall next to his broken bedroom door, so he sits, frozen. Darcy attempts to prop the box against her foot to carry it to the couch. Steve takes pity on her then, grabbing the box and holding it out to her, but Darcy points to Bucky rather than reach for it herself so Steve catches his eye. Bucky considers again chucking the box at the wall, or out the window, or hurling it down ninety flights of stairs, but he discards all the options, Steve and Darcy gazing at him expectantly, hopefully. Instead he sits up and reaches past Darcy to take the box from Steve, trying his best to look for his world like a civilized human being.

“Now,” Darcy says, “unlike certain people who, for the moment, shall remain nameless, I have a _reason_ why I think you should do this. Would you like to hear it?”

‘No’ pushes at his lips, demanding release, followed closely by ‘Do I have a choice’ and ‘Since when do you ask before telling me anything,’ but he knows those would hurt her and hurting both Steve and Darcy in one day would upend the stability he’d managed to achieve in the past few hours. He stares down at the box instead, taking a moment to breathe in, to focus on the slide of air into and out of his lungs, to soothe the anger seething inside of him. They didn’t cause it. They didn’t deserve it. 

“Okay,” he says when he feels he can say the word without snapping.

The silence extends a beat too long. He glances up, finds Darcy looking at Steve. He can’t see her expression, but the ache on Steve’s cuts Bucky, too clear and sharp for him to bear. He shifts on the cot and tries to smile, but his face is stiff, his body still reeling from whatever Zola had injected into his veins. Steve, hunched and huge on the cot but still _Steve_ , eases closer and—

“Buck. Bucky. Focus on my voice.”

His eyes flutter then the world resolves around him. Steve sits before him now, perched on the coffee table. He feels Darcy’s hand on his back, rubbing slow circles. Bucky tilts his head to the side, away from them, bile rising in his throat.

“Tell me,” he says through gritted teeth.

Darcy’s hand stills on his back. “What?”

He swallows and says, “Camera.”

“That can wait. You should—”

Bucky shakes his head. “Helps… focus.”

“Okay. Okay. Okay.”

He lifts his right hand and reaches out, blind, patting her head a few times when his palm brushes against her hair. “Breathe.”

She huffs out half a laugh. “That’s what I’m supposed to be saying to you.”

Bucky shakes his head again.

“No? Why? Oh. Right. Reason. Okay. So, you know, I thought the camera could help. You can take pictures of stuff you like, and it could, maybe, help you figure out who you are, or which you is you, or which parts are you. You know what I mean. And if you put them up, you can see them, you can see you, you know, and you’d know… you’d know that it’s there. That you’re there. You’d know that—”

“—it’s real.”

Bucky jerks his head toward Steve, his eyes wide. He hadn’t told Steve about the doubts that plague him at night, when he dreams his dreams from cryo or those from the war, when he recalls the images his brain created to drive him mad or maybe keep him sane. He remembers now that Steve had his own ice. Maybe he had his own dreams too. His own doubts.

Still, he says, “Picture’s kind of flimsy for that.”

Steve gives half a shrug, not directly dismissing the criticism. “It worked in the Smithsonian, didn’t it? They convinced you who you were.”

“You did that. The pictures just… helped.”

Steve’s face softens, emotion gripping him in the face of Bucky’s admission. He nods once, the movement curt, and clears his throat, trying to shake the sentiment holding him. Bucky looks away, down at the camera, his throat tight too. Darcy resumes rubbing circles across his back. He sees her hook an ankle around Steve’s leg, and he knows that she wants to hug him too, Darcy, like Steve, someone who cares. 

The fact that they care for him makes him swallow his discomfort and open the box.

“You’ll do it?” Darcy asks, breathless.

Bucky nods, not trusting his ability to speak.

“Great! It’s all ready to go, charged and everything.” Before he can process what’s happening, she’s darted from the couch to the table where she sets herself down next to Steve. “Steve and I can be your first picture.”

Bucky glances up, finds Darcy already with her arm around Steve and a bright smile on her face. Steve stares down at her, both startled and amused, and whatever grounds Bucky gained over his emotions vanishes at the sight of them. He focuses on prying the sleek camera from the box, on stilling the riot in his heart. Keeping his voice light, he says to them, “I thought you said to take pictures of stuff I liked.”

The sigh he receives from Steve and the sharp poke in the knee from Darcy make Bucky smile. He powers on the camera then holds it up before Steve and Darcy. They lean into each other and smile, not at the camera but at him, and it settles Bucky and warms him and resurrects his need to be a complete and utter little shit.

“Look… here. Or something.”

Both of their smiles drop at his vague instruction, which does not, in the least, resemble an order to say cheese. Steve looks pained and Darcy incredulous, and that, of course, is when he takes the picture. Bucky manages to restrain himself until the picture appears on the screen and then a shit-eating grin blooms across his face. 

“You know,” he says, reaching for the printer, delighted at the frowns that appear on Steve and Darcy as they realize what he’s done, “maybe this whole picture taking thing won’t be so bad after all.”

*


	3. Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst ahead. There’s a brief reference to “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen in the first section. I also use the phrase ‘merchant of death’ from _Iron Man_ to describe Bucky because, in my brain, MCU Bucky is the son of an undertaker, which is why he had a nice suit to wear in the flashback in Cap 2. Also in my brain, the Barnes family is from Eastern Europe, changing their name to something more ‘American’ when they moved. Hence the slur bohunk in his memory.

And The Wounded Sing  
Part Three

 

Through the glass, he sees the demon dance, prepping for the ritual. It requires the proper sacrifice, and that honor is his. He should feel honored. He knows he should. It is right and good to die for one’s—

The chair trembles. Or perhaps he does. A flaw, he’s been told. Fear is for the—

The demon utters its call, guttural and coarse, an invocation to death. _Hail! Hail!_ And the chair awakes. Blue tongues of flame arc forth, seeking him. He wants to run (another flaw) but he can only watch, his body frozen, powered down and he without the—

3—

3—

3255—

Salvation rises, and, oh, he can see. He’d always seen, but the demon hides, masked with a smile and no longer misshapen. He strains against his bonds, crying out a warning, but no sound issues forth.

He’d forgotten he can’t speak.

But salvation needs no warning, securing the demon in rings of light, bright from a star, and stepping toward him, shining. He closes his eyes and basks in the warmth. Maybe this time. Maybe he can. Maybe he can be and not do. Maybe he—

But when his coffin opens, death arises, lifting his arm, his gun, his weapon, himself, and shoots Steve in the head. 

Blue eyes gape from a thin, pale face, Steve so small, curved like a question, why, why, but the Soldier steps on, to the end of the—

Lights flash and the car approaches. He stands in the trees, counting down. The car passes, and a tiny face peers from the window, a tin robot in his hand. Three, two, one, and the car explodes in red and gold. 

Behind him, the demon approves. The procedure has already started. She calls out to him, reaching, and he comes, both arms circling down, encircling her, because he can hug her now. He can. He—

The lightning sizzles through them both, blue and cold, and they scream. They scream. They—

“Bucky!”

Bucky jerks awake, still screaming, electricity burning in him still, burning out him and Darcy in his arms.

“—now. It’s Steve—”

Blood in blonde hair, staining blue eyes red. He shot him. He shot him and he hadn’t cared, he hadn’t cared, he just—

“—Tower now. Bucky—”

The Tower and Tony and the two in the car, and at the memory of what he did to Howard, Bucky rolls over and pukes onto the floor. His chest heaves, throwing up water and bits of spaghetti, Steve trying to cook for them the night before. Awareness returns with the bile in his throat. Steve crouches before him, barefoot, still mussed from sleep. The grey sky beyond the windows shows early morning, close to dawn. The last time Bucky recalls looking at the clock had been around three, a small glance away from the corkboard that hangs now on the wall and the photo pinned neatly in the middle. An hour and a half then, maybe, but he feels no relief from his sleep, his body shaking and his heart pounding and his stomach churning and his throat swollen and his mind raw.

“Bucky?”

Concern radiates from Steve, so stark that it makes Bucky wince. He gives a short nod and tries to ease back, away from the worry and the vomit beneath him. Steve edges around the puddle to steady him, one hand on his chest and the other warm on his back. Bucky wants to lean in to the touch and also to pull away, but he lacks the strength to do either so he remains in place, letting Steve guide him back against the side of the bed. He lifts a hand and swipes at his mouth as Steve leans for the glass of water on his nightstand. Instinct had driven him to bring it with him from the kitchen. Steve never did, though the dry fall air woke _him_ in the night with a hacking cough. Bucky knows that he remembers to but that he doesn’t do it, Steve driven by idiocy and defiance, trying so hard to conquer the—

“Drink this.”

Bucky jerks. Steve holds the glass out to him. His hand is steady though shadows haunt his face and draw sharp lines around his eyes as he stares at Bucky. Bucky looks away, down at the glass, his stomach heaving again. He’d killed him. He’d killed him. He’d killed—

“Take it,” Steve says again. “Or I’ll dump it on your head.”

The laugh that escapes him surprises Bucky. It surprises Steve too, even more so when Bucky says, “That’s my line.”

It was. It had been, directed at Steve on more than one occasion when he’d refused the glass that Bucky had brought to their bedroom. He’d grown more reckless after his ma died, grief burying what little sense he possessed, making him shun all aid. Panic crawled like ants in Bucky during those moments, no one else there to push Steve to accept a limitation that his body imposed. 

“It is,” Steve says now, a small smile curving his lips, the recollection softening the stiff set of his shoulders. “And as the stubborn bastard who kept telling you to go ahead and dump it, I suggest you take the other option.”

Bucky doesn’t try to smile, but he does meet Steve’s eyes. “Dump it on your head?”

Steve laughs. Bucky wishes he could too, that he could settle and find comfort in the restoration of their rhythm, but his dream lingers as they always do now. He knows that they shouldn’t. He knows that they hadn’t, not before the war. They had faded like everyone else’s when he woke, but now they remained, far after when consciousness should have claimed them. Bucky wonders if it’s the same for Steve or if Erskine had spared him this particular torment. He doesn’t ask though. He just reaches for the glass and drinks it down, washing at least the taste of bile from his mouth if not the images from his mind.

“Thanks.”

Steve nods. He returns the glass to the table, his movements slow and careful. The need to ask about what just occurred emanates as clearly from Steve as his concern had before, but the last thing Bucky wants to do is rehash and review and relive, so he pushes to his feet, wobbling only once before making it upright.

“I’m going to the gym.”

There’s a moment of startled silence and then Steve says, “Do you want company?”

Bucky shakes his head. “One of us should get some sleep.”

“I don’t sleep much nowadays.”

“Probably hard to,” Bucky says, striving for composure as he opens his closet door. “Me causing a ruckus all the time. You should take advantage of the quiet.”

But Steve persists. He wouldn’t be Steve if he didn’t. “Bucky—”

“I don’t need company,” he says, his tone short as he grabs his workout bag. “I’ve got enough up here as it is.” He waves a hand by his head as he pivots on his heel.

Steve sighs at that, but Bucky doesn’t let him say anything else, crossing to the door and escaping to the hall without another word.

 

*

He expects Steve to last fifteen minutes before he follows and hovers and pesters, driven by love and loyalty, but an hour passes before the door to the gym opens. Not long enough for Bucky to calm the storm that howled in his mind, but long enough for him to burn through his irritation and drop anchor momentarily so he could endure. But it’s not Steve who pushes through the door. It’s the doctor— Bruce— rumpled and yawning but dressed to run. 

He stops when he sees Bucky then scans the rest of the gym, perhaps for Steve because it’s only then that Bucky recalls that Steve runs this time of the morning. Guilt swoops through him at the recollection, but he pushes on. The least he can do for Steve now is make sure that the rest of his day passes quiet and undisturbed, and he needs a few more miles to accomplish that. 

Forty would do. Thirty-six was not enough. 

Bruce claims the treadmill two down from Bucky. He performs some light stretches, giving a small nod to Bucky when they lock eyes, but thankfully not attempting to initiate conversation. Then he begins, jogging at a much saner pace than Bucky’s pounding run. The next few minutes tick by in silence, though Bruce looks at him from time to time, his glances more frequent as time passes. Bucky chafes under the gaze, recalling how the docs in Russia had watched him run, jump, climb, and fight. Every few seconds one would make a notation, his pencil scratching loud across the paper, loud enough to grate, to buzz along Bucky’s jaw and down his spine. They had watched him in America too, performing the same tests and making the same notes as they pushed their dog to the limit.

The memory of Pierce smiling when he discovered that Bucky had few pushes its way to the surface. How much, Bucky realizes now, now that he remembers, how much Pierce looked like Steve. The two images overlay, Pierce and Steve, and Bucky stumbles, enough to send him reeling off the treadmill and into the nearby mirrored wall. The mirror shatters upon impact. Glass rains down on Bucky as he tries but fails to evade, his muscles too loose, too slick after running so long. A few of the shards pierce his shirt and cut into his back; more scrape his hands and forearms as he falls. He tries to stand, but chunks of glass unsettle his steps and he falls again, left arm down this time.

The slivers shriek against his palm.

“Easy. Easy.”

Bucky flinches at the voice, Bruce forgotten in the crash. He stands three feet away, but he wants to come closer, to check Bucky over, to poke and prod and cut and burn like they all did, like they all do, instructions relayed through a small box, black and gray and red and black and pure blinding white. Dozens of boxes over dozens of years in dozens of cities, from East to West, but the voice remained, always—

“Here.”

Bruce holds his water bottle, leaning just enough over the circle of glass so Bucky can claim it. He does, retracting his arm to sit back on his haunches in the corner. Glass crunches beneath his boots and sweat drips into his eyes. Bruce watches him, saying nothing until Bucky starts to drink, then he murmurs, “Some of the glass fell on your back. If it’s okay, I’d like to check the cuts, make sure they’re not too deep.”

Bucky forces down a drink between gulps of air. His pulse skitters in his throat; the bottle slides in his bloody hand. “I’ll heal.”

Bruce nods as though he understands. Maybe he does, the hunch of his shoulders familiar. Bucky tries to focus on this, on the fact that Bruce knows Steve and Darcy, that he helped make Bucky remember again. Some of his discomfort fades, only to return a second later in a hot wave of shame.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, looking away.

“You’ve no need to apologize. I can’t imagine you’ve been given many reasons to trust a doctor, much less one with my… condition.”

At that, Bucky lifts his eyes. Bruce’s expression is warm, a little wry, born by a joke that Bucky doesn’t understand. “Your condition?”

Bruce grows still. “No one told you?”

Bucky shakes his head. He feels the tension start to ratchet back up in him, and he tries to steady his breath, to keep calm.

“Not even Tony?” Bruce asks.

Bucky stiffens. His water bottle cracks in his hand. “No. I haven’t… seen him. Much. Since…”

Bruce nods again, as though he understands, but how could he understand, Bucky here in Tony’s Tower, restored by the machine that Tony built? One would expect the two to cross paths, Steve and Darcy important to the both of them. What reason could they have to avoid each other? None that Bruce should know about, those who could dead now or locked away in Bucky’s head. But Bruce knows, no surprise in his eyes, only calm, sad acceptance.

Bucky shrinks back against the wall. “You know?”

To his credit, Bruce doesn’t play dumb. He nods, once, slowly.

“And Tony?”

Bruce nods again.

Bucky turns away. Nausea rears again. He should have realized. He should have known, the way Tony reacted the first time they met. Bucky had thought it was because of Darcy or Steve, not this, not Bucky murdering his parents, but of course he didn’t know it then, he hadn’t remembered, but now he does, and he should have realized, he should have known, he should have—

The water bottle implodes in his hand, sending water everywhere. Heart pounding, Bucky looks at Bruce. “Does Steve know?”

Howard had been his friend. They’d flown together over enemy territory to rescue Bucky, Steve risking his life for him, to save him, and Howard risking his life for Steve.

“I think so.” Bruce is quiet when he speaks, pitching his voice low, trying to keep Bucky calm, but his breath grows short with each revelation. “There were files… Hydra files. That, uh, that Natasha, the Black Widow, exposed online. To dismantle the organization.”

Bucky leans his head against the wall, closing his eyes as he tries to stem the nausea cresting within him. Tony knew, but he still helped. He let Bucky live here, in his home, the man who murdered his parents, and Bucky couldn’t, he couldn’t stop himself, he couldn’t even stop himself from ruining more, from breaking mirrors and doors, sweaters and a soap dish and bones and bones and bodies, a collar, a cheek—

His lungs burn, his chest squeezes tight and his heart flutters fast, like the bird, the bird in the—

“Bucky. _Bucky_. You’re having a panic attack. Try to breathe with me.”

Bruce demonstrates, the rasp of his inhale like pencil lead to Bucky.

“Stop.”

Bruce does. “What do you need? How can I help—”

“Stop,” Bucky says as he lunges forward. “Stop helping.” Bruce falls back, his eyes wide as Bucky stumbles past, racing from the room, hell and his memories on his heels.

*

The door is unlocked. It always is, and Bucky hates it and loves it at the same time. He knows why Darcy does it, why she can do it, only approved people allowed on the residence floors and Jarvis overseeing all, capable of securing the door and the floor and the entire Tower if the need arose. But the vulnerability of the unsecured entrance pricks at him too, at all of his selves, the punk and the soldiers and the wreck he is now, because all of them know that she leaves it open for him.

An open door.

A dropped shield.

A bedroom in a fancy Tower.

A better man would walk away, from them all, even from Steve, so much damage already done, but Bucky is not the better man, not anymore, so he turns the knob and eases inside.

Only the grey light of encroaching dawn illuminates the apartment, Darcy likely asleep at this early hour. Bucky takes a moment before the door to soothe his breathing, his chest still heaving from the 36 mile run and his harried escape up the stairs. He manages to quiet the rapid rasp, enough so he doesn’t wake her, he hopes, then he starts forward, slipping down the hall toward her bedroom. The door is open there too, so Bucky stands in the threshold, letting his eyes adjust to the dark. He spots her sprawled across the bed, clad in her polka dot pajamas. Peering across the distance, he watches for the steady rise and fall of her chest. When he finds it, he tries to match it, Bruce right about this, about the panic clamping down on his chest and his need to breathe. But his legs refuse to wait, giving way before he finds the rhythm and sending him to the floor once again. Bucky catches himself on his left hand, his right, like his legs, like his head, useless now. He pushes himself upright, against the door frame, drawing his legs in and dropping his head down, and he sits in the dark and quiet and attempts to breathe.

Seconds or minutes pass, time a concept he can no longer grasp with sure hands. He used to be able to, back before the war, holding on tight with every gasp and wheeze that rattled from Steve’s chest. He suffered a few panic attacks growing up, most brought on by illness and his inherent inability to breathe. The last occurred shortly after his ma died, a few days after he and Bucky found a place to live. Steve had coughed so hard he brought up blood. Only a slight tear of his vocal cords, not TB, but the sight is enough to set him off. Bucky finds him in their small kitchen, pale hands gripping the sink, his back hunched and his body taut. His ma taught Bucky how to help the first time it happened, about a year after he and Steve met. He pulls close one of their chairs, steps beside Steve, and eases his fingers free from their grip, all the while sucking in deep, slow breaths, huge gulps for Steve and his eggshell lungs to mimic. Steve tries to fight, he always does, but he fails, collapsing back in the chair with wide, wet eyes. The spindle arms spin down, encircling him, and Bucky watches as the beast awakes, spitting blue flame into blue eyes and turning Steve incandescent. 

The ground squishes beneath his feet, soft, loamy earth mounded high. He peers into the grave. Steve lies in the bottom, small and large, small and large. _Death comes for us all_. The murmur sounds in his ear, but the tone is all wrong, flat in its cadence, bland as bleached bread. He shivers and wants to run, but he can’t, one foot in the grave, the other pressing down on a pale, white—

The yelp wakes him, piercing in the midst of his scream. Bucky jerks upright as Darcy does too. The room is bright enough now for her to seem him without difficulty. She stares at him a moment, breathing hard, before flopping back onto the mattress.

“Dude…”

Bucky winces. He draws his right hand through his hair, dripping again with sweat. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she says, waving a hand at him. “You only took, like, six years off my life.”

The diner flashes before him then, Darcy huddled and shaking beneath the booth as the chaos of his life exploded all around them.

Darcy lifts her head to peer at him. “That was a joke, bear.”

Bucky grits his teeth and moves to stand. His legs tremble from the effort. “I’m not a bear.”

Darcy sits in her bed.

Darcy dies in his arms, his dream overlaying reality.

“You realize that every denial just reinforces the claim, right? I mean, look at you. You’re all grumpy mama-bear hunched in the cave mouth right—”

“I wouldn’t have to be if you learned how to lock a goddamn door!”

Darcy blinks at him, thrown by his sudden outburst. Her shock, though, quickly gives way to exasperation. “When are you going to let the shoulder thing go? You’re not—”

“What? A threat? Dangerous?” He moves toward the bed, raw and throbbing, his mind cleaved like an angry wound. “Why? Because I’m your friend?”

Darcy presses her lips together, but she doesn’t avert her gaze.

Bucky stops by the end of the bed. “You think friendship means anything to the Soldier?”

“Yes.”

His mouth goes flat. He sees Steve in her eyes, stubborn and small, so very, very small, and he killed them.

He’ll kill them all.

“Tell that to Howard Stark.”

Her eyes widen, but it’s Bucky who blanches, it’s Bucky who trembles, it’s Bucky who fights for breath at the image of her soft in the bed, trusting and open, bare before the weapon who looms with fisted hands.

Darcy says nothing this time as he turns and runs from the room, and the silence hounds him, saying all.

*

The box waits on his bed for him in the midst of a silent apartment. A torn piece of paper rests on top. Even from the doorway, Bucky sees Steve’s atrocious scrawl smudged over the lines. He never understood how an artist as talented as Steve failed so much at basic penmanship. But he did, and Bucky had been the one to write the letters on his commissioned posters, his lettering neat and precise. Steve trusted him enough to add them last, to the inked and colored drawings. The thought of a pencil in his hand now, of trying to bring coherence to his frantic thoughts, overwhelms him. Bucky leans against the doorframe, eyeing the box, panic wedging sharp into his chest again. Gritting his teeth, he tries to breathe, but calm continues to elude him so he stalks forward and snatches the paper from the box.

_Buck-_

_Had to go talk to Pepper (Tony’s ~~gal dame~~ girlfriend, also boss of his company) about Avengers stuff. Shouldn’t be too long. In case you get back before I do, I thought this might help. Tried to tell you about it before. Maybe you could find something in it to add to the board. We can go through it together if you want or you can by yourself. ~~Just~~ Whatever you need._

_-Steve_

He crumples the paper in his hand as the memory of his conversation with Steve about the camera comes to the fore. Possessions. _His_ possessions. The box before him was his, stuff that he owned before the war, salvaged somehow by Steve.

His throat closes at the realization. Bucky eases back from the bed, his chest burning and heart pounding. His eye catches on the corkboard, hanging on the wall shared by the hall, parallel to the left side of his bed. Neon green pins fix the picture to the center, and he freezes at the sight of Steve and Darcy. They tried so hard, the two of them, together, separately, to help him, to make him whole. They deserved more than this. They deserved the boy in the box, not him. The boy never snarled or snapped. He cared and smiled and helped and danced, and he could be, he could be for them. He _had_ been. But he can’t. He tries. He tries to smile and he tries to listen and he tries to be, to stay with them here, in the present. He went to the chair to be, but now, now—

He pivots on his heel and darts to the bathroom, lunging inside as his nausea crests. Bucky clutches the sink, nothing but water and bile splashing into the basin. Sobs wrench at his chest. He knees start to give way and he jerks back, too fast to remember to avert his gaze. In the faint morning light, the mirror reflects his face, and Bucky stands, caught, horrified by the image. Sallow skin and bloodshot eyes and ragged red lips with tangled hair and a long, ratty beard, no reason for them to care, not as long as he could stand and fight and fire a gun, and if he couldn’t, just cut him open and pump him full of poison, jam in wires for nerves and burn away the man, the one who cared, who greeted the sneers of _bohunk crumb_ and _gypsy grifter_ and _immigrant scum_ with pressed suits and pristine hair, and now he’s what they said he was, a wretch, a monster, a merchant of death—

He moves without intent, rearing back with his left arm and driving his fist into the mirror. The glass shatters, the sound sharp and jagged like his scream. Shards ricochet in all directions; two nick his chest, one imbeds in his thigh. His fist catches in the cabinet behind the mirror, and he tries to pull it free, only to wrest the entire cabinet from the wall. With a howl, Bucky hurls it at the shower door. The glass here cracks but does not break. He slams his foot into the door, the kick brutal and inelegant. It tears the frame out of the wall, and glass smashes onto tile, porcelain snaps and metal screeches, piercing the air, and Bucky collapses in the chaos, bleeding and broken, the room echoing with his sobs.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Google 'young Robert Redford' and marvel at the similarities between him and Chris Evans. Because of this, in my head, Hydra let Pierce work with Bucky because he looked like Steve.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has left comments and kudos so far, especially some of the lengthier ones which definitely made my day when reading them. It'll be a bit longer before Part 4, 1 1/2 to 2 weeks as I haven't written much this week.


	4. Part Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the bathroom destruction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said 1 1/2 to 2 weeks, but this week, especially today, sucked. Publishing Chapter 4 will make me happier, so I'm going to do it. I've completely planned Chapter 5, but only half of it is written. Hopefully it will be finished by next Friday. *crosses fingers*
> 
> The referenced Billie Holiday song is [“They Can’t Take That Away from Me,”](http://youtu.be/ehMx12dSF6w) which is now one of my official Bucky songs. Darcy references one of my favorite lines from The Empire Strikes Back.
> 
> Each note seems inadequate, but I am truly appreciative of the comments that are left for each chapter. Thank you so much. They help brighten the end of a long work week. :D

And The Wounded Sing  
Part Four

 

“Sergeant Barnes?”

Zola leans over him, smiling. Light reflects off his glasses, obscuring his eyes. Bucky shivers at the sight and tries to ease away.

“Sergeant Barnes?”

The voice whispers from the box beside his head, proclaiming victory for Hydra. _Hail! Hail!_

“Sergeant Barnes, excuse me, but are you awake?”

He is now, waking with a shudder to the sharp prick of glass beneath him and tacky globs of blood drying on his skin. Opening his eyes, Bucky finds himself on his back on the bathroom floor. He doesn’t recall passing out. The realization that he had, that he had lost control so thoroughly, alarms him. His stomach churns and his breath quickens, and he— 

“Sergeant Barnes?”

Bucky flinches at the voice, though no pain follows. Jarvis is not Zola. This is not Moscow or D.C. or Berlin, and he lies on the floor not in a chair. Still, he has to swallow twice before he can speak. “Yeah?”

“I apologize for the intrusion, Sergeant Barnes, but Sir, Mr. Stark I mean, wishes to fix your door. Ms. Lewis informed him of it yesterday. May he enter to do so?”

“Uh…” Bucky sits and takes in the devastation around him. A gaping hole now exists above the sink where the cabinet used to be; a new hole from the thrown cabinet punctures the shower stall. The cabinet itself lies warped and crumpled in the cracked basin below. Under the pull of the snapped frame, the shower doors hang off the wall like broken wings. Swallowing again, Bucky glances to the side and finds the already cracked toilet lid gone, wrenched from the bowl and thrown somewhere from the bathroom. 

“Sergeant Barnes?”

He starts again, as much from Jarvis as from the shame flooding him at the extent of the destruction. _His_ destruction. He lifts his hand to his mouth and wipes blood and spit from his lips with trembling fingers. He considers for a second telling Jarvis that Tony can’t enter, but the door needs to be fixed so he can hide this ruin from Steve. At least until he figured out how to explain what happened, to both him and to Darcy. The thought of her reaction to this causes his throat to seize, and he—

“Sergeant—”

“Yeah, Jarvis. He can, uh…” Bucky pushes to his feet, wincing at the screech of glass between the plates in his left hand. He stares at the knuckles, at the grooves along the back of his hand. How was he going to fix this? He knew nothing, nothing about himself, about— 

“Sergeant?”

“Yeah. Just… just give me a minute, and I’ll go.”

“You do not need to leave, Sergeant—”

“No. No. It’s okay. It’s—”

He should go. He needs to go. He stumbles over the glass and out of the bathroom into his bedroom. Bright mid-morning light illuminates the room, the one that Tony had given to him, that Steve had shared with him, that he had now destroyed. Blinking in the light, he picks at his torn and bloody shirt. The box still sits on his bed. He sees the toilet lid hanging from the wall inches from the corkboard. Had he thrown it at them? He doesn’t remember. Why? Why would he do that? Turning around, he pulls the bathroom door closed, grateful at least that he didn’t raze this to the ground along with everything else. Spinning again, he leaps over the bed to yank the lid from the wall. Paint and plaster fall on his head, and he curses, shaking it off as he jumps back over the bed to throw the lid into his closet.

“Barnes?”

Bucky freezes at the sound of Tony’s voice. He hadn’t heard the apartment door open. Moving faster, he grabs his hoodie from the hanger and throws it on. As he races from the room, he hears Tony start down toward the living room. 

“You don’t have to go,” he says to Bucky now, trying for light and breezy with his tone. “In fact, I thought we could talk. Or something.”

Bucky stumbles at that. He can’t talk, not now, not to him. Zipping his hoodie, he darts down the hall and is inches from the freedom of the living room, from the ability to circle around Tony without engaging him in direct conversation, but then Tony pops his head around the wall and Bucky stops, so suddenly that his hood flaps up around his head. 

They stare at each other, silent and wide-eyed, and then both attempt to speak at the same time.

“Sorry. I was just—”

“Why are you bleeding?”

Bucky tenses again and ease back a step. “I…” But he flounders in his explanation, looking anywhere in the hall but at Tony, who frowns at him as the seconds pass. 

After fifteen, Jarvis saves him. “Apologies, sir. I had intended to inform you about the gym, but Dr. Banner asked me to wait.”

At that, Tony steps into the hall. He carries a toolbox, a battered green monstrosity at odds with the sophisticated man before him. Bucky straightens his shoulders and tries to smooth down his hair, perpetually disarrayed since— He shakes his head and tries to banish the thoughts, though they’re why he’s here. From the corners of his eyes, he sees Steve smile. Bucky shoots him a glare before turning to Howard, Howard fucking Stark, the man who invented flying cars, who made what others could only imagine, the man who had flown into enemy territory in the middle of the goddamn night _against_ orders to help Steve save his sorry—

“Don’t worry about it, Barnes.”

Bucky twitches, torn once more from the past. Tony, not Howard, _not Howard_ , stands before him, the toolbox, perhaps the same one, in his hands. He stares, blinking, and the frown deepens on his face. 

Twitching again, Bucky takes another step back. “What?”

“The mirror,” Tony says slowly. “In the gym. Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh. I… Sorry.” His face heats at the reminder of his earlier destruction. The mirror. The bathroom. The door to his bedroom and a pale, soft sweater. Bones of collars and of cheeks and three bullets through a wall. And all, all because of him. Bucky feels his hands start to tremble and he closes his eyes. “I’m sorry…”

There’s a beat of silence and then Tony says, “It’s okay. We can replace it.”

The man bends over Bucky, who looks around but he doesn’t know where he is. He only recalls Steve on the train, reaching, reaching, and then— The man holds a metal rod. Bucky tries to evade as he brings it closer, lowering it toward his arm— toward his stump, _his stump_ , oh god, how would he dance— but he can’t, his body strapped to the table. The rod touches his arm and Bucky flinches at the cold press of metal. Then he starts to scream as electricity sizzles up his arm and into his chest, the nerves still functional, still—

“ _Barnes_.”

Bucky starts. His shoulder collides with the wall, denting the plaster. Howard holds out a hand, his palm out. “Easy now. It’s all right.”

For a second, Bucky can’t move, relief bubbling within him at the sight of Howard. But then he remembers, he _remembers_ , and dread swoops down, cold and heavy and stealing all his breath. 

“I killed you…”

Howard’s eyes go wide. The blood drains from his face. He stares up at Bucky as he approaches. In the car, the woman hangs, caught in the seatbelts, her eyes blank and neck broken. Glass crunches beneath his boots from where the car flipped and tumbled down the embankment. He stops beside the target, no threat now, his left femur broken and right wrist shattered. He expects begging, many do, but nothing comes from this target. He only stares, tears in his eyes. Reaching for his knife, he feels something, a whisper in the back of his mind. His hand stills at the— at the memory, it’s a memory, the target, younger, smiling at him. He closes his eyes, trying to block the thought, to stop it before the pain comes. But the whisper is spoken, wavering and bloody but clear.

_Barnes?_

“Shit. Jarvis?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Get Cap. We got a Lucy.”

“Right away, sir.”

Bucky opens his eyes. He remembers. He knows. He killed him. Howard. They made him. Put a gun in his hand and made him forget. This man… He’s not Howard. He looks like Howard like the other looks like Steve. But they’re not them. He remembers. He knows.

The man who looks like Howard licks his lips. Bucky eases upright from the wall, eases his left foot behind him. The man watches him, tensing as Bucky tilts his head to the side, as he says softly, “You’re not Howard.” 

He knows this. He remembers. They tried with the other, the one who looked like Steve, but he knew then too. He had snapped his wrist and bloodied one eye before they took the imposter away.

Now, they try again.

The man who looks like Howard sighs and his shoulders slump, seemingly in relief. A test, an act, to draw Bucky in. He starts to smile, but he stops when Bucky reaches for his knife.

“Barnes… Bucky.” The man swallows and lifts his eyes. “You know me.” 

He’s not afraid, which makes Bucky grip the knife tighter in his hand. “You’re not Howard.”

“No,” he says. “I’m not. You’re right. I’m Tony, his son. Remember, Tin Man? You’re here in my Tower.”

Bucky clenches his hand into a fist. He wants to punch Tony, punch that smirk right off his face as he swivels on his stool and stares at Bucky, but Darcy’s here and Darcy likes him, maybe. She turns around then, and he tries to relax, finally feeling it with her, standing beside her as they gazed into the icebox, but then _he_ entered and rattled off words. Meeting her eyes, he watches as her face heats. Her cheeks flush pink like in the motel when he looked at her and when he stood close. His body responds at the sight, his core temperature rising, his breath quickening, more so when he sees her lick her lips. Bucky stares, remembering, or almost remembering, feeling the absence of a memory and wanting, wanting… something. Her, he thinks, as he lifts his eyes. Wanting—

“Barnes?”

Bucky lurches then, staggering back into the wall. Tony holds out his hand again, his eyes not on Bucky, but his knife.

His knife that he pulled on Tony.

“Oh god.” Bucky drops the knife onto the floor. He hunches back and closes his eyes and tries, he tries to breathe. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

“Sir, I believe Sergeant Barnes is—”

Bucky turns away from the voice, stumbling back into his room, trying to get free. But it’s there, always, always, always whispering to him, always lurking in the cold. Zola leans over and injects fire into his blood, whispering, whispering, the procedure has already— He leans close to him, older now and frailer, but still whispering, whispering, about a parade now and the new world—

“—part, having a few of them myself, you know. I don’t think you’re helping though, so go—”

The crash startles them both. Bucky leaps to his feet, tense and ready, and Tony raises his hand, but before either of them can move, they hear from the hall, “Bucky?”

“Thank Christ,” Tony says, sagging in relief. 

Bucky looks at the door. “Steve?”

Steve appears, flushed, breathing hard. As he does, the strings cut and Bucky falls. He falls and Steve rushes to catch him. They collapse onto the floor, Steve with a hand on Bucky’s chest as Bucky clings to him, his fingers digging into his shirt so hard that the fabric begins to tear. 

“I can’t… I can’t…”

Steve nods. “Yes, you can. Breathe with me, Buck. Come on.”

Bucky shakes his head, his thoughts slipping hold. 

“You can,” Steve says, his brows drawing together. “In and out. In and—”

“I killed him.”

Steve stiffens. From the corners of his eyes, Bucky sees Tony do the same. He remembers the road and the car and walking forward. He remembers the blood and the glass and the sharp smell of fuel. He remembers Howard. He remembers leaning down—

Steve shakes him, bringing him back, making him focus again. “That was Hydra. Not you.”

But he leaned down, the knife in his hands.

“Bucky. Listen to me—”

“I did it. I shot the tire—”

Tony closes his eyes.

“—I followed through. I set the fire. But I didn’t… I didn’t know,” he says, clutching at Steve. “I didn’t. I thought— But I couldn’t, I couldn’t remember. I knew I didn’t…. that I didn’t know. But _he_ did. Zola. I remember. He knew, and he—”

—smiles. Bucky can’t see it, he can only hear the voice, whispering, whispering, but he knows that he smiles, pleased at this, wielding Bucky in vengeance against—

“ _Bucky_.”

Bucky starts. He looks at Steve then leans in and grips down harder, and the words come, frantic and fast. “He’s gonna come, he will, he talked about you, I remember, he did— he’ll want, he’ll want to— Darcy…” Panic seizes hold of Bucky, burning, writhing in his gut. The plates of his hand grind as he bears down onto Steve. “They saw her. At the diner. They might have told him. Or at the motel. I tried to tell her, I tried, but I couldn’t…”

Steve shakes him again, once, hard enough to still the flow. “Zola is dead.”

Bucky shakes his head. 

“He is. I found him, or what was left of him. At Lehigh. Pierce blew him up, trying to get to me.”

Laughter bubbles out of Bucky. “You think he let himself die? With the technology available now?” He shakes his head, tears pooling in his eyes. “He won’t. He’s waiting. Waiting for the Skull. It’s a door. He told me, Stevie. He always does. He tries— I hear him—”

“Here?”

“Jarvis, run diagnostic.”

“Bucky, is he—”

In the dark, whispering. In the cold—

“Bucky. Stay with me.”

Bucky looks at Steve. “I can’t. I want to, but I... It’s all… Everything’s here and I can’t. I can’t, I want to, I want—” He wants to. He wants. Darcy, Steve, peace, sleep, love, quiet, warmth, life. He wants. He wants. “I want. I— You… and Darcy… The chair… I thought... I thought it…” He looks at Tony, looks away again, unmooring at the glimpse, Howard rising on a wave of blood, all his kills, dozens of them, men and women, kids too, collateral, necessary for peace, lies, lies, all lies, everything a lie— 

“Bucky…” 

Grief cracks his name in two. Bucky shakes his head and closes his eyes. His body shivers and his lungs shudder as he tries to breathe.

“I’m sorry, Buck.”

His hands tremble. He needs… What? He needs to leave. But where? Where can he go? Where can he—

The needle pierces the back of his neck. Bucky jerks his head up and meets Steve’s eyes. They’re red and bright, shining with tears. Bucky holds on, he tries to, but he’s tired, so tired, so— and they deserve, they do— The world wavers before him, beginning to dim, and Bucky lets it, finally, he lets go, relaxing his grip on Steve, falling into the dark, down into the black, where he should have stayed, alone and cold and—

*

Warm summer night envelops Bucky. He lays on the roof, staring up at the stars, the great expanse of the universe so close to him that he can almost touch it. He tries, lifting his left hand. Moonlight ripples across his skin, cool, like cream, as his fingertips skim the iridescent heavens. A soft sigh sounds to his right. Bucky turns his head. Beside him Darcy lies, Vega in her left eye, Altair in her right. He smiles and she does too. They clasp hands and breathe, safe beneath the shimmering sky.

“Bucky!”

He peers down the street, sees Steve waving from the corner. Smiling, he starts toward him, Darcy in step, gorgeous in blue. Bucky hooks an arm around Steve and pulls him along, whisky warm and ready to dance. Stevie too, Darcy teaching him. He spins a lady in red away from them, nimbly avoiding her toes. Bucky pulls Darcy in close. He breathes in her smile, brushes his lips against her brow. They move to the music, something slinky and sweet from Billie. No, they can’t take that away from him, the way her smile just beams, the way she haunts his dreams. They can’t. They can’t. The silk of her dress slips across her skin as he palms the small of her back. Darcy leans into him. Fingertips like flower petals glide across the back of his hand. Their eyes meet and Bucky grins and she flushes, high on her cheeks, a delicate pink. Her lips part, and Bucky dips his head, his heart racing.

“Bucky!”

They stand on the shoreline, glowing in the summer sun. Steve toes at the sand. Darcy peers at the horizon. Bucky starts to run, gathering speed, grinning as Darcy turns and catches his eye. She jumps back and Steve stills, realizing, but it’s too late. With a bellowing cry, Bucky plows into him and they plunge into the waves. Steve surfaces with a yelp, his arms akimbo, looking like a bedraggled cat. Behind him, Howard snaps a picture. He snaps another as a mound of seaweed plops onto Bucky’s head. Bucky spins and scoops Darcy out of the water. Laughing, she mashes the other handful against his head. Warm in his hands and soft, he catches her eye, and she clings to him as he tips them back, laughing, into the sea.

*

Bucky wakes, swimming to consciousness in a slow, easy stroke. A blanket cocoons him, something thick and squishy, nothing like the worn cotton and drab wool of his childhood. He feels warm and soft in its depths. He feels safe. He burrows into the sensation, deeper into the comfort. As he does, he tugs on a hand, the one holding his. Slim fingers tighten upon him. Bucky feels the frayed edge of a sweater tickle his palm, and he smiles, recognizing Darcy.

“Steve! I think he’s awake!”

He is so he does, opening his eyes. The world flutters and threatens to retreat again, but after a moment, it resolves around him. Evening darkens the world beyond the windows. The chair that had been by the view now sits to his left facing the bed. Darcy curls up in it, her legs drawn in and her knees propped against the armrest. She lowers them as he turns toward her. Even in the dim light, he sees the redness of her face, swollen and blotchy from crying, and the sight makes him frown. 

“What—”

Motion by the door distracts him before he can complete the thought. Looking over, Bucky sees Steve ease into the room, and the loose, loopy grin breaks out across his face again.

“Stevie!”

Steve pauses in his approach. The look of concern on his face softens, and something like a smile wobbles upright. He perches beside Bucky on the bed, a frying pan in his left hand. “Hey, Buck. How you feeling?”

“Great. Good. Good. But…” He swivels his head around toward Darcy and his frown returns.

Darcy squeezes his hand. “I’m fine.”

Bucky shakes his head. She’s not. He can see it. And he remembers— something… 

“I am,” she says, leaning toward him. “Really. I—”

“Where’s your picture square?”

Darcy cocks her head to the side. “My what?”

“Your picture square. For the cats.” Bucky pulls his hand from hers and tries to push himself upright, but the room begins to spin around him and he stills. His eyes go wide as, despite his stillness, the room continues to revolve like a gramophone needle. “Whoa.”

Darcy snorts as Steve reaches out to help ease Bucky back down. “Whoa indeed.”

Laying his head back on the pillow, Bucky looks at Steve. “What— what’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing,” Steve says quickly as the revolutions begin to ease down. “At least nothing bad.” He pauses then, searching for something. A second later a small smile appears on his face, and Bucky feels the harsh edge of his panic abate. “You remember when Bruno Monteverde pushed me down the stairs?”

Bucky makes a sound of disgust. “Goddamned punk. I wanted to smash a brick against his fat face.”

Darcy snorts again and Steve’s smile widens. “I know you did. Remember how Mr. Warner gave me some laughing gas to pull my broken tooth?”

It takes a few seconds to process. When it does, Bucky’s jaw drops. “I’m _high_?”

Steve nods.

“The Lucy special,” Darcy says. “Or at least that’s what Tony’s calling it. Never pegged him for a Beatles fan.”

Bucky grimaces and squirms in the bed. “Beetles are gross.”

Darcy’s eyes widen and her whole body puffs with glee.

“The Beatles are musicians, Buck. A music group.”

Darcy huffs out a sigh and glances at Steve. “Spoilsport.”

Bucky frowns at them. “Who the _fuck_ names themselves after bugs?” 

Darcy shrugs and pats his hand. “The British.”

“Oh.”

“Yep. Just wait until I tell you about the Barking Spyders.”

Bucky grimaces again. He opens his mouth to respond about the ridiculousness of modern music and how she needed to listen to some Jimmy Dorsey, but it snaps shut half a second later and his head jerks toward Steve. “Wait. I’m _high_?”

Steve blinks at him, and Darcy starts to giggle. Bucky frowns again and says, “Wait. I just said that, didn’t I?”

Steve nods. His eyes are wide and his lips pressed together, his laughter barely held at bay.

“I— How?” Bucky says. “How? I don’t—” His chest grows tight and his eyes dart from Steve to Darcy and back again. 

The laughter fades from both Steve and Darcy. Leaning forward, Steve says, “Bruce. He made it for Pepper to help keep her calm so she wouldn’t, uh, so she wouldn’t—”

“Explode,” Darcy says for him, smoothing a hand up and down Bucky’s forearm. 

“Oh.” The sensation of her palm soft across his skin lights his brain up like fireflies. He tries to focus on what they said, on the doctor helping him, or helping Pepper and that helping him, but his brain catches on the image of Tony’s ~~gal dame~~ boss exploding and he bursts out laughing.

Darcy shakes her head. A hint of a smile appears on her face again. “Laugh it up, fuzzball. It looks good on you.”

Bucky blinks once, slowly, then sends her a saucy grin. “Everything looks good on me.”

“Does it now?” Darcy reaches out and tugs on the end of his beard. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“You like it.” He reaches up and snags her hand, clasping it to his chest. His grin turns sly as he turns to Steve. “She tell you how she took a peek at me in the motel?”

Her shriek starts him laughing again. 

Steve fights off a grin as he turns toward Darcy. “Why no, Buck. Darcy didn’t tell me that.”

Her face flushes crimson. “He walked out of the bathroom naked! What was I supposed to do?”

Bright, bright, so bright, and warm, Bucky whispers at Steve, “She also bought me shirts that were too small so I’d have to walk around without one.”

Only dogs and supersoldiers can hear the sound Darcy makes in response. She tries to tug her hand free from his grip, presumably to smack him on the chest, but Bucky holds firm. She settles for a glare instead. “I did not. _You_ were the one who decided against the hoodie so you could air out your man nipples.”

At that, Steve’s shoulders start to shake.

“ _And_ ,” Bucky says, his grin again sly, “she tried her best to get me to speak in profanities. Told me to tell people to fuck off. Can you imagine, Stevie? Me, a good Catholic boy, saying such fucking filth?”

Steve manages to hold on for another few seconds. “No, Buck. I really fucking can’t.”

Darcy closes her eyes and sighs. “Jesus Christ.” The two burst out laughing at her muttered curse, prompting Darcy to sigh again. “I’m going to hit you both with this frying pan if you don’t fucking stop.”

Bucky turns toward her to leer. “That’s kinky, doll.”

Steve shakes his head. His muffled giggling undercuts the seriousness of his expression. “You should probably use your own frying pan for that, Darcy.”

“Oh my god,” she says. “You two are the _worst_.” She stands now and tries once more to pull her hand free. “Make your own damned grilled cheese. I’m going—” 

Bucky lifts his head, as intent as a dog with a scent. “Cheese? Sandwich? Shut up, Steve.” He knees Steve in the leg, so hard that he knocks him off the bed, which makes Steve stop laughing but causes Darcy to start, which makes Bucky start again, and he feels, he feels, he feels so bright. “Oh god, Stevie. Your face. Where’s my camera? I need—”

Faster than he can process, Darcy’s whipped her phone out of her sling and taken a picture of Steve pouting on the floor. When the image resolves, she shows it to Bucky, who laughs so hard he brings tears to his eyes.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Beatles & Lucy bit is a reference to the urban legend that their song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is secretly referring to LSD: Lucy Sky Diamonds, i.e. she's high. Also, no slur against the Beatles is intended. I love them, but I can't resist a good pun. The Barking Spyders truly existed, and a high Bucky Barnes is now my new favorite thing. :D


	5. Part Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky wakes from his drugged-out bliss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As with the first part, I realized I did *not* need an almost 8000 word part, so I've divided it in two, which means there's a new part (as you've, of course, realized by reading this). I hope everyone enjoys, though Bucky is no longer high. There is some angst as there always is with Bucky, but also positive steps too.

And The Wounded Sing  
Part Five

 

Though the haze of the drugs he’d been given has faded, the warmth remains when Bucky wakes next, in the middle of the night by the flavor of the sky outside. The softness has stayed too, the thick blanket still tucked around him. And the people, Darcy curled in the chair to his left while Steve sprawls in one from the living room at the foot of the bed. His legs extend across the corner of the mattress, his left knee inches from Bucky’s left foot. Darcy grips his right wrist; he feels the edge of her sweater around his knuckles, his fingers tucked beneath the sleeve.

Sixteen hours.

He slept for sixteen hours. Without a nightmare. And they stayed with him the entire time, even after— 

Bucky looks past Darcy to the bathroom, the door open just an inch but open nonetheless. They know then. Tony likely does too, he here when Bucky fell apart. Bruce may as well. The drugs Steve used to knock him out came from Bruce so maybe he visited while Bucky slept to check on him. All of them know then what he did, in the bathroom, in the past, and he’s still here. 

He’s still here, and they’ve still stayed.

The tears come fast, sideswiping Bucky. He closes his eyes to suppress them, but his chest hitches and his throat closes despite his efforts. He tries to muffle the sob, biting down on his bottom lip and tilting his head to the side, but still he hears Steve stir. Glancing over, Bucky expects to see Steve staring back at him, but he sleeps on, just shifted now to his right. Frozen, Bucky watches him, waiting a few seconds before breathing in, before turning away, intending to close his eyes again and stay still until they wake, but his gaze catches on the corkboard instead, and he stares at it, breathless.

Beside the original picture of Steve and Darcy, he finds more. The one that Darcy took of Steve pouting on the floor is to the left of the first. There’s also one of Bucky laughing that he hadn’t realized she’d taken, now bookending the original to the right. Half of the photostrip of him and Steve at Coney Island joins them, the half that he hadn’t mangled before. Bucky sees a picture of one of the dancing birds from the videos he watched with Darcy as well as, and this pulls a soft laugh from him, a photo of an enormous pile of grilled cheese sandwiches. His laughter fades though at the sight of what’s to the right of the corkboard, extending out toward him in a long narrow scroll: a pen and ink rendering of Brooklyn as seen from the bridge, but not of now, of the past, the Brooklyn that he knew.

He and Steve.

“You don’t have to keep it.”

Bucky starts. His eyes jerk to Steve, who peers at him across the dark room. He faces away from the ambient light of the still buzzing city, but Bucky sees the concern in his eyes. He tenses and Steve lowers his gaze, staring at the blanket a moment before turning to the drawing. “Darcy said that’s where you were going to go before coming here.” His lips compress then, some emotion suppressed. Before Bucky can try to discern it, Steve swallows and shrugs. “I thought until then that this would… But you don’t— I mean, I know you’re supposed to choose the stuff you put up, but—”

“I like it.” Steve looks at him, taut and hopeful. After a moment, Bucky remembers to say, “Thank you.”

Steve gives a curt nod in response, but Bucky knows that he’s pleased. He is too, feeling more on solid ground than he has since he first broke free, sleep and drugs and Darcy and Steve providing some balance to his pendulous mind. He glances again at the drawing, wanting to continue on as a normal human being. “Is it new?”

Steve nods. “I did it… seven— eight months after coming back.” Shadows steal across his face again, but he forces out a smile. “It took me that long to go back. I couldn’t—” He pauses, looks briefly at Bucky. “It was hard. At first. Then it got easier.” Steve turns to Bucky once more, and the smile loses some of its strain. “Now it’s a good reminder. Most of the time.”

The revelations surprise Bucky, Steve saying little about his trauma the past few weeks. But how could he, Bucky and his inability to function overpowering all? Laying there now, he tries to imagine what it had been like for Steve to return, what it would be like for Bucky if he were here without Steve, unmoored in this new world. Did Steve feel the weight of time that had passed, or had seventy years felt like a day to him when he woke from his ice? Bucky had felt the passage of time, conscious of each nightmare. At least until the wipes. Now, the decades press upon him, a vague shadowed existence twisted among his dreams.

“Did you dream?” he blurts out, too loud, making Steve twitch and Darcy jerk awake. Bucky feels his face heat, but he keeps his eyes on Steve, wanting to know.

Steve nods at him. Then he smiles, and he never did this much, smiling when he was sad. Bucky recalls a few moments, the winter when he was sixteen and they both thought he was going to die, then when his ma was dying and after she died, and the first night back at camp after Steve rescued Bucky, that first night that Bucky woke screaming from a nightmare. Bucky opens his mouth to say something now, he doesn’t know what, this muscle, the one to comfort and soothe, atrophied, but Steve glances at Darcy, who looks now at Bucky, and he pulls his legs from the bed, preparing to stand.

“You want some water?”

Bucky shakes his head.

Darcy says nothing.

Steve shakes out a crick in his neck before shuffling from the room. Bucky stares after him, at the doorless frame, at the gash to the left of the corkboard. The last time that he and Darcy had spoken, at least when he was him and not high on drugs, he had threatened her, if not in word or deed than in the future possibility of both. His stomach churns at the remembrance. Bucky closes his eyes, but this allows for memory of her on the bed, her eyes wide as he stalks forward, to come to the fore. He feels his pulse accelerate, and his breath catches in his chest as he— 

Darcy tightens her grip on his wrist. “Stop.”

Bucky clenches his jaw.

“Please. You’ve got enough up there tormenting you. I don’t want you to add me to the list.”

He opens his eyes, but he still can’t bring himself to look at her. “I—”

“—was kind of an ass, yeah. Who wouldn’t be after sleeping, what, ten hours in fifteen days?”

Bucky shakes his head. “That’s not an excuse.”

“No, it’s a reason.”

He presses his mouth into a thin line, keeps his gaze fixed on the drawing of Brooklyn. It wasn’t a reason, no matter what she said. It—

“Jesus, dude. Cut yourself some slack.” Darcy pulls on his arm, wrenches herself up off the chair and into the bed. She plops down and, before he can react, shimmies over into his line of sight. Wide-eyed, he stares at her as she says, “I know you wanted the chair to fix you, to make you stable, and you hate that it didn’t. But newsflash, bear— you’re the only one who expected that. The rest of us— we just… We wanted…”

“What?”

“You. However you were.” She pauses then and a faint blush stains her cheeks. “I mean, not you in full kill mode. Which you _aren’t_ ,” she says, grimacing now. “You haven’t been since we met, even before that, but…” She stops again and closes her eyes, and despite himself, Bucky feels his lips curve into a small smile. A beat passes then Darcy opens her mouth and bellows, “Steve! I’m fucking it up!”

Bucky reaches out a hand and pats her on the arm. “Cut yourself some slack, dugong. You’re doing fine.”

Darcy pulls in a deep breath, perhaps for a sigh, but her eyes snap open and she says to him, frowning, “What the hell’s a dugong?”

“A sea mammal. Like a manatee.”

She stares at him for approximately four seconds before unleashing her sigh.

“What?” he asks, feeling his own sliver of embarrassment. “Would you rather be a dingo?”

“It’s better than a sea cow. Because that’s what you just called me. _A cow_.”

Beyond Darcy, Bucky sees Steve reappear, a glass of water in his hands and amusement in his eyes. Bucky scowls at him before saying to Darcy, “Dugongs are the inspiration for mermaids. They’re sometimes called the ‘Queen of the Sea.’ I was trying to be nice.”

Darcy regards him through narrowed eyes, caught between vexation at being called a cow and pleasure at being referred to as a queen. Steve starts to laugh, silently, but Bucky still sees his shoulders shake. He sends him another glare, wondering if he would always need to be high to regain anything close to his prior skill with women.

Darcy pulls her arm beneath his hand until their palms align. Then she grasps his hand and says, “Why don’t we branch out to the M’s, okay? For a greater, saner variety of animal.”

“M?”

“For May.”

Bucky smiles at that, at Darcy May, prompting her to roll her eyes. 

“My dad wasn’t the most creative guy. May for May, as in the month I was born. And I swear to Thor,” she says as his grin widens, “if you follow dungo—”

“Dugong.”

“Whatever— with manatee, I’ll…”

He cocks a brow. “What?”

“Do something,” she says, narrowing her eyes again. “Pick a nice animal if you want to complete the set.”

“Muskox,” Steve says from behind her.

Darcy twists around to glare at him. “That was _not_ the requested contribution, Cap.”

“How about mole?” Bucky asks. He tries hard not to laugh when he hears Darcy sigh.

Steve looks at him, his eyes bright. “I think that’s a no on the mole, Buck.”

“You think?” Darcy says, her voice rising. “Just because I wear glasses sometimes—”

“Meerkat?” Bucky asks.

“Millipede,” Steve replies.

“Moose.”

“Maltese.”

Darcy heaves out another sigh. “Oh my god, you two have watched way too many nature docs.”

“Markhor,” Bucky says as he rubs his thumb against the back of her hand.

She casts her glare upon him now. “Now you’re just making shit up.”

He shakes his head. “It’s a goat.”

“Found mostly in Asia,” Steve adds as he draws closer.

Darcy looks at him, unimpressed. “A goat.”

Steve nods. “A goat.”

Darcy turns to Bucky. “A goat.”

He pulls upon all of his training to maintain a straight face. “They’ve got great balance.”

Darcy lowers her head and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Jesus Christ.” 

Both Steve and Bucky laugh, and he feels it here, now, without the aid of drugs, he feels who he should be, who he wants to be, but as soon as he thinks it, as soon as he _feels_ it, it begins to slip away, as intangible as a dream. Is it? Is it just a dream? It is. It has to be. Steve said that Zola was dead, but he would never die, he never died, he endured, over the decades he endured, somehow, a ghost in a machine. Like Bucky. And Hydra would never let Bucky go, they wouldn’t, he ran away before but they found him then and they’ve found him now, they had to have, maybe in the diner, if he’d even been there at all, because this… this…

“This isn’t real.”

Darcy’s hand tightens over his, but Bucky rips his away and pushes back from her and up until he’s sitting. His eyes are wide as they dart from Darcy to Steve and back again. 

Darcy tries to reach for him again. “Bucky—”

He shakes his head and looks away, but Steve’s to his left now, the chair that Darcy had been in pushed away and Steve settling onto that side of the bed. “This is real.”

Bucky shakes his head and closes his eyes.

“Yes, it is,” Steve says again. “Look at me, Buck.”

He doesn’t. After a moment the bed dips, Steve leaning toward him. Bucky feels his hands clamp down on his shoulders. His eyes fly open on instinct. Light floods the room then, Darcy by the door, her hand on the light switch. Wincing, Bucky thrusts out his left hand, but Steve bats it away and says, “This is real. You’re in New York, Manhattan, in a building owned by Tony Stark. Howard’s son. It’s 2014. You pulled me out of the Potomac, you ran into Darcy in a diner, and she helped you get here. This is our apartment, and it’s real. You’re not dreaming.”

Bucky shakes his head. Pain is real. And order. Not this.

Steve holds on to him tight. “Yes, it is. You said the same thing after Italy. Remember? You couldn’t believe that I’d changed, that I’d found you and saved you. Remember? You still thought you were with Zola, dreaming everything up. But you weren’t then and you aren’t now. I found you again. It just… It took me— It took me longer.” He stops, overcome. Bucky watches as he bites down hard on his bottom lip; he feels Steve’s hands start to tremble on his shoulders. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that it took me so long.”

Bucky shakes his head. “No. No. Steve—”

“I didn’t look for you,” Steve says, crying now like he laughed before, silent, his body trembling. “I didn’t think to—”

“You couldn’t have.” Bucky lifts his hands and grips Steve in return, bearing down hard to try to get him to believe. “You didn’t know.”

“I should have.”

“No. Who would have known, how far I fell? I should have died, Steve. I almost did. And I swear to God, if you blame yourself for that, for me falling, I’ll do more than dump this glass of water on your head.” 

“I—”

“Tried. I remember.” Bucky always remembered that, when he did remember. Steve reaching for him, trying, slipping, his face in anguish as the rail gives way— gave way. He grits his teeth and tries to keep himself in the present. Steve needed him here, not then. Not anymore. “You almost fell. I saw it.”

Steve shakes his head. “No.” His voice is thick with tears and snot, and it wrenches at Bucky as Steve speaks. “I shouldn’t have asked you to come with me. I was selfish. You should have… You should have gone home, after what happened with Zola. But I—”

The bar flashes before him, the sharp taste of the liquor matching the sharp edge of the laughter, everyone desperate to snatch a bit of fun before the war swallowed them whole again. Bucky tracks Steve across the bar, still unused to his size, the easy way that he moves now. He knows what he’d been proposing to the guys, what he comes over now to propose to him—

“I wanted you there.”

Bucky inhales sharply as he returns to the present. He bites down on the inside of his mouth. The flash of pain grounds him, it lets him focus on Steve. Grief blotches his face, strangling his breathing like his asthma did before. Bucky shakes him, once, hard, jerking him from his guilt-fueled contemplations. “Like I was gonna let your dumb ass wander all over Europe alone. Jesus, Steve. Now that you could do half the shit you tried before? No. I knew the risks, and I still…” He pauses. His eyes dart to the doorway where Darcy stood, but it’s empty. His breath snags in his throat at that, but he swallows it down and turns back to Steve. “I made my choice. What happened, the train, it’s not your fault.” 

“And what happened after isn’t yours.”

Bucky tries to turn away, but Steve holds him fast. 

“It isn’t,” he says again. “Hydra—”

“Chose the targets, yeah, but you think they made me into something I wasn’t?”

Steve stares at him, his mouth open. Then it closes and firms and sets straight to stubborn. “Bucky—”

“No. _No._ ” Bucky rips his arms away and stumbles from the bed, kicking free from the blanket and the lies. “No. They took— They took what was there, Steve. What the Army made me into, and they… sharpened it. They strengthened it. But I was already a killer. Why do you think Zola chose me?”

At that, Steve stands. His face is pale in the stark light, bleak shadows cast now beneath his eyes. “You can’t seriously compare the Army to Hydra.”

“Why not? They both put a gun in my hand and told me who to kill. You think I had a choice either way?”

“Not for Hydra—”

“And not for the Army either.” Bucky stops and shakes his head, the past rearing inside him too fast and too hot. He sucks in a breath and tries to still the shaking of his hands, tries to keep the storm at bay. He doesn’t want to fight with Steve, but he doesn’t want to slip away either, and he feels his control teetering on the edge. “I’m not you. I didn’t volunteer. I was drafted. It… It was never my choice.”

The fucking smile appears then. Bucky feels it sharp in his gut, twisting hard when he hears the waver in Steve’s voice. “And yet you tell me not to feel guilty for keeping you around when you could have gone home and lived your life and not… not…” 

Not fallen. Not forgotten.

Not become the blood-soaked wretch he is today.

“I do,” Bucky says, fisting his hands, digging the nails of his right into his palm to find the strength to continue on. “And you’ll do it. Because you won’t take that choice away from me. Not like them. I’ve had two, Steve. Two fucking choices my entire life. Following you and following Darcy. The rest…” The rest he can’t articulate, his throat closing upon the words, upon the reality of his life, shaped by his nationality and social class, his neighborhood and circumstance, his birth order and biology, from being 32557 and a few pounds too light for a shield and too heavy for a rail. 

Steve stares at him, as wrecked as Darcy had been before, his face red and swelling with grief, but he nods at Bucky. “I will. I’ll try. But you should too. Please—”

“Okay.” The word darts out into the space between them, unbridled by panic and guilt that rush through him at the prospect of Steve begging him to forgive himself. Bucky looks away. He shifts in place. He glances at the door, and he tries to convince himself that he’s not running away. “Darcy… I have to—” 

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Go. We’re good.” There’s a pause. Then Steve clears his throat and says softly, “Right?” 

The doubt guts Bucky, too much on top of everything else, Steve carrying guilt at Bucky falling, at his torture from Hydra, his time slips and tantrums, though he moved his entire life for Bucky, though he saved him, saves him, again and again and again. Bucky nods, hoping that it’s enough, words impossible, before turning and leaving the room.

*


	6. Part Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Darcy converse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Darcy quotes a bit of Walt Whitman later on, and if you haven’t listened to alt-J’s “Nara” you should. It is my new Bucky/Darcy song. 
> 
> Work weeks are hard. The comments and kudos and bookmarks you all leave and make start the weekend off on such a high note. Thank you so much. Unfortunately I am where I thought I would be with working diminishing writing time. For the next part, one section is nearly all the way written, but the other two are just briefly sketched. Now it really will be two weeks or so before the next part is posted.

And The Wounded Sing  
Part Six

 

Dried blood discolors the doorknob. Droplets stain the floor inside the apartment. Bucky hadn’t thought to clean his hands after smashing the mirror in the gym. He’d just ran, panic snapping at his heels. Now he follows the morbid set of breadcrumbs to her room, no blood left in his wake this time, his wounds cleaned and healing, the glass even gone from his left hand. Just sweat and desperation, panic still nipping at him, panic at the thought that maybe, finally, after everything, after this, she would walk away. 

He pauses outside her bedroom. The only illumination comes from inside. His socked feet edge the cone of light spilling into the rest of the apartment. Bucky stares down at it, his heart racing, his body still on edge from his quarreling and reconciliation with Steve. Closing his eyes, he tries to slow his breathing and assert control over himself. He can’t always be crazed. He can’t always be high. Calm comes easier than at any other time the past few weeks, a miracle he attributes to excessive sleep. If only he never dreamed again, or that he did but like he did earlier that night, normal dreams, happy dreams, not twisted missives from his subconscious. He focuses on that, on the phantom feel of Darcy in his arms, but the sensation eludes his grasp. Reality, though, proves to be weightier, her grip on his wrist after he wakened pushing to the fore of his mind. She stayed then, even after the bathroom, after knowing about Howard. She would, she would, she—

“You gonna come in? Or do I actually need to get up off the floor? Because I don’t think that’s going to happen, bear.”

—sounds the same, warm and wry, no rancor in her tone, and Bucky releases a long breath. He tries to dampen the relief he knows shines clear from his face and peers around the door. Darcy sits as she said she had been, on the floor before the end of her bed. She’s pulled her blanket so that the ends wrap around her shoulders rather than curve down to the floor, transforming the thick grey and purple cotton into a gigantic cape. He searches her face but sees no new signs of crying and relaxes further. Easing forward until he stands in the doorframe, he says, “You left.”

Darcy nods. “I thought you two might need some privacy.”

Bucky cocks a brow at her.

“Okay, I thought _Steve_ might need some privacy. I doubt he wanted me watching his breakdown. He seems like a private guy.”

Bucky blinks at the idea, the concept of privacy one he’d forgotten after being so long denied to him. For seven decades, every part of his body had been poked, prodded, measured, and tested, including his brain, what was sacred there, his memories and desires, systematically exposed and destroyed. He hadn’t thought that maybe Steve would want privacy, not from Darcy, but maybe he would.

He doesn’t say this to Darcy, though, not until he knows for sure from Steve. Instead, he leans against the doorframe and says, “It might’ve been better if you stayed. We ended up fighting.”

Darcy straightens, concerned.

He shrugs and looks down at his feet. “It’s fine now. I think. I don’t know.”

“So why are you here?”

Bucky glances up in time to see her close her eyes. She rests her head back against the mattress and sighs. “Jesus Christ, can I go _five minutes_ without saying something dumb?”

The corners of his mouth curl up only to flatten again as he recalls the past ten minutes. “If it makes you feel better, you’re not the one who told Captain America to his face that the U.S. Army was just as shitty as Hydra.”

Her eyes open and track him as he moves into the room. “No.”

Bucky nods, sitting down beside her. The wall stretches above them, half-filled, arranged in radiating rings, the center Darcy and people he assumes are her family, ringed by pictures of her and Jane and Thor in various combinations, sometimes joined by an older man that must be Eric the mentor. Bucky’s there too in the picture she had taken of them with her phone, and he sees one of him and Steve in their apartment, laughing, it seems, at something on the television. The man from Steve’s photos appears here too, the one with the bandage across his nose, casting her a look of fond exasperation as she, presumably, makes him wear ‘I Heart London’ sunglasses. In the rings beyond lie an odd assortment of postcards and printed quotations, pressed flowers and sheet music, bookmarks and older pictures of people from her childhood and adolescence. All evidence of a life lived, maybe a good one overall. 

The question of whether it’s too late for him wiggles into his brain.

“What brought on the army slur?” she asks as she drapes one end of the blanket around him. 

He considers evading the question, but the words come before he can decide either way, blurted out as though they demanded revelation. Maybe they did. He remembers starting to slip after Steve rescued him from Zola, trying to suppress the ugly new truths of his life. “I never wanted to fight. Never wanted to join the Army.” He hesitates a moment before finishing the thought. “Never wanted to kill people.” 

She doesn’t immediately respond. He can’t bring himself to look at her face, to see what might be there at this latest reference to how exactly he’d been used for the vast majority of his life, at where his talents and maybe purpose lie. But then she nudges his arm and asks softly, “What did you want?”

What had he wanted? He can’t remember. He tries to think back, tries to call the memories he wants rather than let the ones that he doesn’t consume him. “My pop… He wanted me to take over his business.”

“But you didn’t?”

He glances at her now, losing his thread of thought in the soft cast of light upon her face, in how it shines in her hair. Shaking his head, he turns to the wall. “He owned a funeral home.”

“Ah.”

Bucky nods but then tenses as the smells assault him, the sounds of the grief in the other rooms, the walls too thin, his constant, constant fear in his teens of Steve being one of the ones to pass through. He hadn’t, but Mrs. Rogers had, and he shouldn’t peek in, he shouldn’t, he knows her, but then so does Pop, and he hadn’t passed on prepping her, doing it for free, he and Ma favoring Steve just as Mrs. Rogers had always cared for Bucky. He peers through the crack between wall and door, sees life being painted back onto her pale, wasted cheeks, and—

“What about when you were a kid?”

Bucky closes his eyes; he swallows hard to banish the image of Steve’s ma. She nudges his arm. The touch helps. Opening his eyes, he summons something like a smile and says, “Ball player. Baseball.” He pauses and his smile becomes a shade more genuine. “What about you?”

“Madonna.”

His brows climb to his hairline. “Uh, I don’t think that’s actually a career option—”

She pokes his arm again with her elbow. “Not _that_ Madonna, doofus. This one’s a singer. She kind of ruled the world when I was growing up.”

“Why didn’t you? Be a singer, I mean.”

“Can’t sing. Not that she really could either, but she was a _lot_ more willing to get naked in front of thousands of people than I am, so it was kind of a no go from the start.”

Bucky’s thoughts snag on the image of Darcy naked. Before he remembered, he knew in a dim and dusty corner of his brain that he liked her smile and the kindness in her eyes and how she felt, soft and warm, when she let him touch her. He knew he wanted to stay with her, to be close to her, but he hadn’t understood what that meant. He hadn’t understood what he felt when he looked at her or when he was close to her. He does now, memories providing comprehensibility, his past experiences with gorgeous dames there for him to draw upon and compare to now, his sleep providing stability, the opportunity for him to expand his thoughts beyond his trauma to nearly forgotten considerations.

Desire.

Lust.

 _Sex_.

He had forgotten about sex. Jesus Christ. Bucky licks his lips, keeps his eyes focused on a blank part of the wall. He feels his heartbeat accelerate at the thought of how gorgeous Darcy would be naked and whether she would ever be for him, whether she’d trust him enough to do so, and he remembers kissing too and how much he liked it, just kissing and women and how they smelled and how they looked, like Darcy, with lush lips and hair he could gather in his hands.

“Wow.”

“Yeah,” she says, gratefully oblivious, also focused on the wall and _not_ on him starting to squirm beside her as blood starts to take a pointed interest in his dick for the first time in seventy years. She’s silent, and Bucky fists his right hand, he digs his nails into his palm, he tries to remember baseball stats, anything to halt the oncoming storm. After a moment, Darcy continues. “But this is a nice alternative. Helping people save the world.”

Bucky nods and swallows and bites down on his lip, then he nearly laughs at how this is what he’s fighting to resist, physical desire for a beautiful woman, rather than the agony of his heaving mind.

“But it’s weird too, like you said.” Darcy glances at him now. Bucky nods again and tries not to grimace as she raises a hand and waves it around the room. “All this, sometimes it doesn’t seem real. Because one day, I’m brewing coffee and trying to get a signal out in Bumfuck, Nowhere, and the next, gods are falling from the sky and there’s fire-face robots and aliens from outer space and then portals to other worlds and smoke monsters, and now I’m living _rent free_ in the middle of _Manhattan_ in a fairy tale tower owned by a guy who flies around in a shiny tin can and who works with a dude who turns into a raging green giant and who—”

“Helped save a crazy, sleep-deprived relic from the 1940s.”

Darcy looks at him again, and Bucky expects a smile, but she’s serious when she meets his eyes and this more than any of his efforts stills the lust brewing within him. “No. Who helped _Bucky Barnes_. You’re a legend, dude. Just as much as Steve. I mean, I studied you in school.” She pauses then and flushes slightly. Her eyes dart to the wall and then back to Bucky, and he watches, riveted, as _she_ starts to squirm, as she licks her lips and pulls in a deep breath. “Am I going to say this? I am. Am I? Why? _Why?_ I’m an idiot. A masochist. A— Okay. Okay. Here goes.” Staring up at the wall, Darcy draws in a second long breath and says, “I chose you. In high school. You know, ‘Who’s your favorite Commando?’ Most of my friends chose Steve. But I…”

He stares at her, his eyes wide. “…chose me.”

“Yep.”

Bucky continues to stare at her. Darcy continues to stare at the wall. She squirms again, and he tries to comprehend the idea of her studying him in school, of anyone studying him in school. He had seen the museum exhibit, all the books in the gift store about him and Steve, but it only hits him now that he’s _old_ , that he’s lived long enough to become history.

“You’re freaking out, aren’t you?”

“Maybe,” he admits. He glances at her again and narrows his eyes. “How old are you?”

“Oh my god,” she says, swiveling around toward him. “ _That’s_ what you’re freaking out about?”

“Yes. I’m…” He does a quick calculation. Upon finishing, the blood drains from his face. “I’m ninety-seven. Jesus—”

“You’re twenty-five.”

Bucky cocks a brow. “Twenty-five? Where the hell do you get twenty-five?” 

“Isn’t that how old you were when you, um…”

When he fell. He looks away, the rush of the wind blowing across his neck, the raw feel of the bar in his hands, looming. “I was twenty-seven.” He’d just turned, in fact, the month before. He remembers Steve leading the rest of the Commandos in an alarmingly off-key rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ as they camped in France. He stares at Steve over the fire, already planning how he can get back at him when his birthday comes around. He—

“So you’re twenty-seven,” Darcy says, jolting him back. “I’ll be twenty-five soon. Even if you add a year or two for, you know, _stuff_ , you’re still barely pushing thirty. Five years, bear. Jane and Thor have, like, nine hundred between them. So you can remove creepy pedophilia from your list of things to brood about.”

The reminder of why exactly he’s almost a century old makes Bucky close his eyes. He leans his head back against the bed. Seventy years Hydra had him, breaking him, shaping him, making him into what he is now. A killer, a madman, a lost, broken thing.

Not someone a person would choose. 

Bucky opens his eyes. Her life, vibrant and rich, stares down at him from the wall, and he sees himself there, scowling, in the middle. “Must be disappointing.”

“What?”

Bucky presses his lips together, forces himself to meet her gaze.

Her brows draw together. “What? I don’t—” She stops then, her face paling. “No. _No._ Bucky, that’s not—” He turns away, but Darcy follows him, shifting in front of him until she’s once more in his line of sight. “You are _not_ disappointing. I only said what I did to try to say that I get it. At least part of it. Doubting whether this is real. Because this… this is good—”

“Right,” he says, starting to pull away. “This… nearly dying in a diner and being shot at and beaten up—”

Her left hand darts out and grasps his right arm. “You did _not_ beat me up. How many times—”

“—this, me going nuts on you every couple minutes. This is good? This is better than the guy you chose?”

Her jaw drops. “What? You—”

“I know what I am. Who I am.” He tries to tug his arm free, but she holds on tight. “And it’s not who I was. Not in the ways that count.”

“No?” She raises both of her brows. “So it was the Winter Soldier who jumped between me and a lot of people who were shooting at me? And it was the Winter Soldier who put himself through hell in that fucking chair just so he wouldn’t hurt anyone anymore?”

“Darcy—” 

“And it was the Winter Soldier who just ribbed the shit out of me in front of Steve? Who sassed me about markhors and manatees? Really? That’s what you’re trying to spin me?” 

“I’m not trying to _spin_ you anything,” he says through gritted teeth. “I’m trying to be honest with you.”

She looks at him, unimpressed. “Honest.”

“Yes. I’m not… him, Darcy.”

“You’re not _not_ him either. He’s a part of you just like that dumbass kid who looked in a history book and liked that cocky little grin of yours is a part of me. We’re different, too, and yes,” she says as he opens his mouth, “you’re very different than who you were, you’ve been through intense traumatic shit, not stupid breakups and family trauma and a couple of alien invasions, but the theory remains the same, dude. You’re _Bucky_. Just, like, version 10.0 of him.”

He stiffens at that. “Version killer, you mean. Version assassin.”

“Bucky—”

“No. That’s what I am. I killed people. And most of them… most of them, I think, were good people. How can I accept that?”

She’s silent a moment, but she doesn’t give in, lifting her chin at him like the last time they faced off in here about him. “You can because you didn’t want to do it. You just told me that. That you _never_ wanted to.”

“Darcy—”

She shakes her head. “No. You didn’t want to. People made you. So you may have killed, but that doesn’t make you a killer.” 

Bucky closes his eyes. His mouth compresses to a trembling point. Darcy releases his arm, and he thinks now, he thinks now, he thinks now she will, but then her fingertips alight on the side of his face. His eyes fly open and his mouth slacks and he gapes at her as her hand flattens out to cup his cheek.

“You’re a good person,” she says. “You are. And you can disagree all you want and I know that you want to because you can be so goddamn stubborn sometimes. But it is documented _fact_ , bear. Steve’s not the only one with books and museum exhibits about him.” Bucky opens his mouth to protest, but again she cuts him off. “And you can’t say they’re not right because you went there. You used it as proof of who you are. So I can too.” 

She pauses then and peers at him. Her eyes drift across his face, making Bucky more aware of himself, of what he must look like, of what she must see, than at any time since he returned to himself. Her thumb slides across his cheek, and she smiles at him, a soft one, soft like her eyes, warm in the dim light of the lamp, and Bucky finds himself paralyzed on the outside and in utter chaos on the in.

“You’re Bucky Barnes,” she says softly. “You’re a good man. A hero.”

Bucky clenches his jaw, burning, upended beneath his skin. He wants to believe the lie, believe in their belief in him, but he can’t. The ghosts in his past demand truth.

Easing his head away from her hand, he says, “Being one doesn’t mean I’m not the other.”

“No,” she concedes, lowering her arm. “Being caring, witty, and an absolute ass-kicker at board games doesn’t mean I’m not a selfish, ditzy, dick sometimes too. Multitudes, dude. You contain them. So do I.”

“Most people’s multitudes don’t contain mass murder.”

“Maybe elsewhere on this planet that’s true, but not in Tony Stark’s magical tower for wayward superheroes.” She clasps his hand again, holds on tight. “You’re not alone in dealing with a supremely fucked up past. Maybe… maybe it would help if you, you know, talked to some of them. About that stuff.”

Bucky looks away. He tries not to squirm, conversation not beetles, not a hairbrush to run from when you’re six years old. 

His attempt not to prompts Darcy to. “I was hoping you’d be more on board,” she says, “‘cause Steve and I kind of already asked people when you were sleeping the drugged-out sleep.”

Talking. To people. People other than Steve and Darcy. Bucky stares at the photographs on her wall, at Thor and Tony, Jane and Bruce. Each had engaged in their own disastrous conversation with Bucky. Squirming now, he says softly, “Talking’s not… I don’t… I…” His floundering prompts a smile from Darcy. Bucky shakes his head at the sight, a wry grin appearing on his face too. “Words and I don’t mix well. You may have noticed.”

“I may have,” she admits. “But I’ve also noticed how far you’ve come. A month ago, talking was hard. Touching was hard.” Darcy squeezes his hand then, and the pressure sends sparks up his arm, sets warmth loose in his chest, but it cools in the next moment as his eyes drop to her collarbone, as he recalls the mirror in the gym and the current state of his bathroom. 

“Good thing I find smashing and breaking so easy.”

He can tell she wants to sigh, but she restrains it. Barely. “You think you’re the only one who’s smashed shit when they’re angry?” 

“It’s not—”

“It’s not the same,” she says. “I know. I mean, have _you_ smashed a significant portion of a major American city?”

Bucky gapes at her, silent, before blurting out eloquently, “What?”

“Because Bruce has,” she says, not bothering to clarify her prior statement. “If you need to, you know, compare relative levels of destruction.”

His own sigh wells. Like Darcy, he makes the effort to restrain it. Unlike her, he fails. “Darcy—”

“Jesus, you are too hard on yourself. You're healing, dude. You _are_. Just… slowly.”

Bucky looks at their hands, at the curl of her fingers about his palm. His dream surfaces, the feel of her then as they danced arm in arm. “Too slow,” he says after a moment.

“Why? You got someplace you need to be?”

No. He never wanted to leave the Tower. He was safe here. As safe as he could be with Zola still in the world, waiting, hovering, lurking in its depths. Darcy and Steve were safe here, too, and they were all he needed. All he wanted. Bucky shakes his head as he meets her eyes again.

“Then ease up on the gas, dude. Let yourself breathe. Let yourself _be_. You got time.”

The overt appeal splits his chest and lays his heart bare. Both her and Steve, begging him and pleading, trying so hard, still, after everything, to make him a person. He promised Steve, and he does now with Darcy too, nodding at her, the tumult of emotion inside him setting words at odds.

If her appeal bares his heart, the smile she sends him in response to his assent buoys it and sets it ablaze. He shouldn’t be here. He _shouldn’t_ , Darcy too bright for the grim shadow he’s become, but Bucky can’t, he can’t walk away, not when she gives him hope for something long forgotten.

Not when she wants him to stay.

But stability first. He chose them, Darcy and Steve, as they, miraculously, chose him, so he’d heal for them. He’d talk to people and try to let himself breathe. And then, maybe…

Maybe…

“I should go,” Bucky says as he moves to stand. “Try to sleep more.” He pauses to help her to her feet, and his lips twist in another wry smile. “It seems to have helped a bit.”

“A bit,” she agrees, smiling at him. “You think I exist now, so that’s a good thing.”

Bucky feels the back of his neck warm at her reference to his doubt. “If it’s any consolation, it’s not like I didn’t _want_ you to exist.”

“It is,” she says, swinging their linked hands back and forth. “Jane’s always telling me I’m unbelievable. You’ve just given me the perfect comeback.”

He laughs at that and she does too. “Glad to help,” he says before pausing, not wanting to push too far, to presume too much, despite her clasp of his hand, but then he goes for it, hoping. “I could, um, help tomorrow too. Maybe, uh, with breakfast. If you want. You don’t—” 

“Uh, when have I ever not wanted food? Especially breakfast food. Seriously, bear. It’s one of my five basic food groups.”

Bucky grins then, giddy, choosing to believe. “What are the others?”

“Chocolate, coffee, pizza, and other.”

“Other?”

“Yep. I needed a collective term for beer, peaches, sushi, and hummus. All tasty things, but on the second tier of life-sustaining foodstuffs.”

He nods at her. “Good to know.”

She arches a brow at that. “Why? You planning on making me all of that tomorrow?”

“Not tomorrow.” He indulges in the smallest of pauses then, the quickest of swallows. He wants this, wants it to be real, so he’ll try to find a way. “It’s like you said. We have time.”

His use of ‘we’ does not go unnoticed. Darcy ducks her head and bites down on her lip. Bucky watches her smile fade and rise again as a wave, and his body spins and twists in response, the look in her eyes like a turn on the Cyclone. 

“Yes,” she says as she raises her eyes, slowly, to meet his. “We do.”

*


	7. Part Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky needs pants for his maybe date with Darcy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Joan Crawford was famous for her style and sharp wardrobe in the 1920s and 1930s. Also, some heavy shit goes down in Bucky’s memories: references to female child and teen abuse, including implied sexual abuse, in connection to Natasha & the Red Room and other young women the Winter Soldier came across on a mission. In neither of these cases is Bucky the perpetrator of the abuse, but someone who empathizes, having been abused himself. 
> 
> Writing the second half of this chapter went a lot smoother than I anticipated, so I was able to do it all this weekend. Nothing of the next part has been planned beyond what I want the scenes to be, so it will probably be a week or two before it's finished. The comments and kudos continue to blow me away. Thank you so much, and I hope you enjoy!

And The Wounded Sing  
Part Seven

 

“I need pants.”

Steve blinks at Bucky over his cup of coffee. Early morning light streams through the living room window, illuminating Steve slumped and bleary-eyed on the couch. Guilt pricks at Bucky for bothering him. _He_ may have slept for sixteen hours straight due to the wonders of scientific innovation, but he knows that Steve hadn’t. He doubts Steve slept much at all before Bucky woke. He knows that Steve didn’t sleep after, awake when Bucky returned from Darcy’s and unwilling to let Bucky clean the rubble from his bathroom alone. Even super soldiers needed rest, but now Bucky stands before him again, demanding something else.

But he needed pants.

Steve blinks at him again then glances down at his bare legs. “Where are yours?”

“In my room.”

Steve looks at him a long moment before blinking at Bucky a third time. “But you need pants?”

Bucky bites back his sigh. “Yes.”

Steve continues to look. He blinks at Bucky once more, takes a substantial drink of his coffee, and then says, slowly, “What’s wrong with yours?”

“They’re _murder_ pants, Steve. I can’t wear murder pants.” He pauses and reconsiders because he _could_ wear them as he had been doing, despite the increasing number of rips and stains. They were functional, and that’s all that had mattered before. Functionality. But he doesn’t want that. Or not just that. He wants… He doesn’t know, but Bucky wants, so looking at Steve again, he says, “I don’t want to wear them.”

“Okay.”

Cup in hand, Steve stands and Bucky follows him as they walk down the hall to the bedrooms. Turning into Steve’s, they cross the room to the closet, where Steve pushes open the doors. Neat rows of clothes hang from pale wooden hangers. The amount of shirts and pants, jackets and sweaters arrayed before him overwhelms Bucky. Need had required both him and Steve to obsessively care for their clothes before, neither of them possessing extensive money for a wardrobe. So this… this…

“It’s a lot,” Steve says as he glances at his wardrobe. Lifting his free hand, he rubs it along the back of his neck, grimacing a bit as he takes everything in. “I’ve got, uh, some pushy friends and more money than I know what to do with now, so…”

“So you decide to give Joan Crawford a run for her money with your wardrobe.”

Steve gives him a look. “Like you can talk. I remember yours.”

“I _can_ talk,” Bucky says, taking a leap now and hoping he sticks the landing. “One outfit, pal. For seventy years.” 

There’s a second of silence, long enough for the first tendrils of panic to unfold within Bucky, but then Steve turns toward him and cocks a brow. “And I had such grand fashion choices trapped in a block of ice?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky grumbles as he turns to peer at the offerings. “I’m just amazed it’s not all red, white, and blue.”

Steve snorts and takes another snip of coffee. “Efforts were made. Often. And by many people.” He pauses then and a slow smile spreads across his face. “Even Darcy.”

Bucky stops in his perusal of the pants and glances at Steve. “Yeah?”

Steve nods. “A pair of Union Jack briefs. Stuffed them in my suitcase before I left London.”

The camaraderie between Steve and Darcy, even then, at their first meeting, makes Bucky smile. It fades a moment later though when he remembers how, exactly, their bond has developed the past few weeks, Steve finding in Darcy a soul with whom to angst and commiserate about him and his mental state. The two of them, working so hard, and for what? For—

“You deserve to be happy, Buck.”

Bucky clenches his jaw. “Maybe. Maybe not.” He pauses then and looks away. “Doesn’t mean she deserves to be stuck with me.”

“That’s not how she sees it. And neither do I,” Steve adds.

Bucky gives a short nod, his throat constricting at the echo of Darcy’s own words from the night before, from their time in the motel when she disavowed him of blame for her nightmare. She chose him before from a picture in a history book and again in the diner when she consented to go with him and again and again in the weeks after. Bucky knows this. He knows. And he wants her, he wants it, to be with her, and he thinks she reciprocates because he remembers and he understands the meaning behind a look and a blush and a touch that lingers. But it didn’t make it right. 

Breathing in, he tries to articulate this to Steve. “Darcy… She keeps giving, and I keep taking. I know she’s not here against her will, but— but I feel bad because I don’t. Feel bad, I mean. I’m a goddamn mess, and I shouldn’t start… But I want to and I can’t stop myself. Maybe I should wait—”

“No.”

Bucky looks up. Steve stares at him, his gaze solemn and direct, no room for argument within them. And Bucky gets it. He doesn’t look, but he feels Peggy to their left, forever enshrined in her burnished frame. 

“I’m sorry,” he says now. “About you and her. You two never getting your shot. You deserved it.”

Steve dips his head. Bucky wants to rip the Red Skull from existence when he smiles and shrugs and tries to brush past the pain. He wants to do it again when Steve says, “She’s still alive.”

Bucky blinks at him, unable to respond.

“She’s in a home,” he continues. “Close to D.C. She doesn’t remember sometimes, but when she does, she’s still sharp.” He pauses then and glances to the side, to the picture of Peggy on the wall. Bucky almost looks away at the expression on Steve’s face, too open, too raw with grief. “She helped me. I was having some… trouble with the world— S.H.I.E.L.D., really— but the world too and what it had become. The compromises that were made. And this was before I learned about Hydra,” he adds. “Fury told me to deal with it, to accept the world as it was, but Peggy… She helped me. She said that sometimes… sometimes we had to start over. That we couldn’t go back.” He looks at Bucky again, direct, so earnest in his appeal. “She’s right. We can’t go back, but we can go on.”

“Have you?”

“A little,” Steve admits. He sucks in a deep breath, only to stop his response when he grins. “The one, uh, lady— woman that, um, appealed to me… I, uh…”

Bucky doesn’t even try to hide his smirk. “Shame the serum didn’t help you with talking to dames. Or about them.”

Steve narrows his eyes at Bucky. “She’s Peggy’s niece. Grandniece. You’d flounder too trying to talk about that. And _to_ it— her. Talk to _her_.” 

Bucky’s jaw drops. “Another Carter?”

Steve nods again. “Sharon. She’s a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Or was. Actually she’s the one that Fury assigned to watch me.”

Bucky stares at Steve a moment, dumbfounded, before he starts to laugh. “Damn, Stevie. You sure know how to pick them.”

“That’s not the half of it.” He waits for Bucky to compose himself then he says, “You want to know the cover they gave her to watch me? A nurse. In the infectious disease ward.”

Everything snaps shut within Bucky. He stares down at the floor, trying to compose himself once more as a bright burst of anger flares within him, as the urge to find and hurt the people who did that to Steve, to make him think of his ma so that he’d trust that broad, rises within him. “I didn’t think Carters played those games.” 

“They don’t. Or at least I don’t think they do.” He pauses and huffs out a sigh. “Natasha swears that Sharon protested the cover, but Fury overruled her. Still…” He shrugs again and turns away, ostensibly to reclaim his coffee cup. He takes a drink and Bucky takes a breath and then Steve says, “Now _that’s_ a reason to hesitate. Not yours.”

It wasn’t. Darcy knew him, had seen the worst of him, and was still here. And he’d seen the best of her. Of course he wanted to know more. And maybe… maybe he deserved it. At the very least she did, and if Darcy wanted _him_ , cracked mind and all, then he could give it to her.

Bucky turns back to the closet to scan the clothes. He settles on a dark pair of slacks, but as he reaches for them, Steve shakes his head and pulls out a pair of denims instead.

“Here,” he says, thrusting them at Bucky.

Bucky blinks at them and then at Steve. “They’re nice and all, Steve, but I’m not going to work in a factory.”

“No. You’re making breakfast for Darcy.”

Bucky gives Steve a look, which becomes a glare at the cheeky grin that appears on Steve’s face. “If you’re just gonna bust my balls about it, why’d you even bring me in here?”

The grin vanishes. “I’m not, Buck. Seriously. This is what people wear. They only dress how we did for special occasions.” He holds the pants out toward Bucky, his gaze again earnest but also a little sly when he adds, “Like when you really take Darcy out.”

Bucky’s pulse jumps at the thought of stepping outside the Tower. He tries to cover by snatching the pants from Steve and pulling them on. “This isn’t a date,” he grumbles. “And I don’t think the government’s gonna want an enemy of the state stepping out for drinks.”

“You are _not_ an enemy of the state. You never have been. You were a prisoner of war, and we’ll do whatever we have to do to get your life back.” 

Bucky glances up at Steve, shocked at his intensity. Steve sends him a tight smile. He pulls in a slow breath and tries to ease down, swallowing once before continuing. “That’s what I’d been talking to Pepper about. She was giving me some advice on lawyers she and Tony know, about whether any can help us.”

Us. The word rattles around Bucky’s brain, nearly knocking him flat as proof of how much they were helping him, how much he hasn’t even known about, too caught up in his own mind. He pulls in a breath like Steve and tries to speak. “Steve, I wanted— You’ve done—”

“Only what you’d do for me. What you’ve already done.”

Bucky releases a gasp of a laugh. “I don’t think forcing you to wear a sweater and eat your broth is the same as taking on the U.S. government.”

“It is to me.” 

The simplicity of the statement stuns him. Throat swelling, Bucky looks away, down to his feet bare on the floor. He nods at Steve, unwilling to argue back and unsure if he wanted to what he could say. Of course it would be the same to Steve. To the end of the line. He hoped that it never would be for Bucky, that Steve would never need him this way, Steve deserving so much in life, but if he did, if he needed, Bucky hoped that he could, maybe, someday, do the same.

“So,” Steve says, clearing his throat to gratefully brush past the moment and place them both upon solid ground. “What do you think?”

Bucky peers at the pants. They were long in the leg by a few inches and tight in the thighs, but he could move and it was movement… it was movement that mattered. No. Bucky presses his lips together. _No._ Movement mattered, but it wasn’t everything, and he could… he could choose something he liked, something that wasn’t practical or functional or resistant to weapons. Teeth clenched, he continues his perusal. Did he like them? He needed a mirror to— Bucky tenses at the thought and a chill rushes through him, the chill of cryo and the doubt at what he would see, but he fists his hands and bears down because this was real, it was real, it was real, _he_ was real—

“Buck?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I—”

“Hey.” Steve grips his arms, his hold warm and sure upon Bucky. Air rushes into his lungs and out again, gushing forth in a shaky breath as Steve says, “You don’t have to decide now. Just try them out for a while. See what Darcy thinks. Then decide.”

Bucky nods. The movement’s as shaky as his breath, but it’s enough to compel Steve to release him and take a step back. 

“What do you plan to make for breakfast?”

“Eggs.” The word cracks like one, jagged in the middle. Breathing in again, Bucky focuses on the ground beneath his feet, on the gleam of sunlight through the windows, on Steve and the thought of Darcy. “An omelet. I read how to make them last night. There’s one with fruit, and I thought— the strawberries…”

Steve nods. “Use whatever’s in the kitchen. And if there’s stuff you want that’s not there, just tell me and I can have it brought here.”

Bucky nods too, intending to leave for the kitchen then, the thought of making another decision exhausting, but a thought stills him once more, one that, this time, makes him smile. “Can we get Doritos?”

Steve blinks at him a moment before raising both brows. “Doritos? Like the chip?”

Bucky nods again.

“The bright orange chip? That one? The one that looks like a traffic cone.”

Bucky cocks a brow. “Respect the Dorito, Steve.”

If possible, Steve’s brows inch higher. “Respect… the Dorito.”

“Yes.”

Steve blinks a third time. “Really?”

As before, with Darcy and the markhor, Bucky needs every ounce of his training to help him resist the urge to laugh. Narrowing his eyes, he says to Steve, “No judging until you’ve tried. And even then, no judging.”

Steve presses his lips together. Bucky thinks he’s trying to smother a smile. “Okay,” he says as they turn for the door, and for a moment, Bucky thinks that Steve’s going to sling an arm around his shoulders like Bucky used to do to him before the war, but he doesn’t. Steve just bumps his shoulder against Bucky’s as they pass into the hall, and Bucky doesn’t know if he’s disappointed or relieved.

*

When the knock sounds on the door, strawberry juice stains Bucky’s fingertips, and he stares at it, trying not to see blood. At the second knock, his gaze flickers to the clock on the microwave. Too early for Darcy, even for their… date. The word circles like gnat around his brain, but he swats it away, the idea still too strange and dizzying for him to comprehend. Even for breakfast. It was too early for her for breakfast, especially after the past few days. But if not Darcy, then who? His left hand tightens around the knife at the question, but he forces himself to relax. Whoever was at the door was an ally, maybe even a friend, if not to him then at least to Steve. So it was someone then who wouldn’t hurt him or Steve, Jarvis watching all.

Placing the knife by the strawberries, Bucky makes his way to the door. Steve currently occupied their only working shower, so he had to open it. He had to talk. And they wanted him to talk. So he would talk. He could talk. He _could_. Bucky remembers talking so much before. He never shut up before the war, his brain a rushing river of words, of jokes and stories and chatter about the day, about girls and baseball and food and dancing, words and words and words and words. So he could talk. He _could_.

His heartbeat accelerates as his hand touches the doorknob, and his breath catches in his chest as he turns the knob, and he bites down, hard, on the inside of his cheek as he opens the door, as he sees the doctor— Bruce— on the other side. Bruce carries a small medical bag in his hands, and Bucky tenses even more at the sight of it.

Bruce eases back from the door, not in fear, Bucky knows fear. In politeness at his discomfort. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t suffering any effects from the injection. I don’t have to—”

“No,” Bucky says, and it’s too loud and abrupt, but Bruce doesn’t jump. He waits, still polite, still deferential, but not afraid. Bucky swallows and wonders why he’s not afraid, but he doesn’t ask. He just eases back from the door and says, “It’s fine.”

Despite the permission, Bruce hesitates.

“It is,” Bucky says again. The edge to his voice makes him wince. He tries to smooth the glare from his face, but the small quirk of Bruce’s brow indicates his failure. Taking a moment, Bucky breathes in then he tries again. “I’m sorry. I just got plans, so can you be quick?”

Bruce nods. He moves toward the door and Bucky steps back even more to let him pass. He stays by the door as Bruce walks down the hall, as he disappears into the living room, his hand tight on the handle once more. It gives a groan of protest and Bucky snatches his hand away. He closes the door, swiftly at first and then slowly, catching it before it breaks. He could do this. He could talk. He _could_.

Swallowing, he follows Bruce down the hall. 

He sees the medical bag first, open on the table before the couch, instruments arrayed along both sides. Bucky spots a stethoscope and a small penlight to the left and a thermometer to the right, but nothing else. As he approaches, he peers inside. A blood pressure cuff lies beside a few packs of alcohol wipes and a small notepad and a ballpoint pen. He sees no drugs, no syringes, nothing that could be used as a weapon, at least not easily, nothing aside from the pen. He feels Bruce watch him, sees him, from the corners of his eyes, send him a reassuring smile. Bucky swallows again and finally sits down beside him on the couch. He knows he should smile as well, social interactions demanded such reciprocity. Tense, his body stiff like cardboard, Bucky contorts his face into something that may, in a dark corner of hell, resemble a smile.

Bruce ducks his head, but not before Bucky glimpses his courteous smile morph into a genuinely amused grin. His own attempt at one vanishes in favor of a glare. “What?” 

“You remind me of a friend,” Bruce says as he looks back at Bucky. The same wry humor that greeted him in the gym faces Bucky now. “He has the same, uh, obvious aversion to medical procedures.” The lightness in his eyes fades then as his gaze flickers to Bucky’s left arm. “With good reason.”

Bucky stares at Bruce, torn between discomfort at the blatant reference to his arm and curiosity at this man who shows no fear of him and concocts drug mixes for women who could potentially explode. Bruce lets him stare, reaching, slowly, into his bag for his notepad and pen. As he flips open the cover, Bucky says to him, “This friend… He was experimented on by Hydra, too?”

“Not Hydra. A group called the Ten Rings.”

In the cave, the girls sit, side by side, chained to the wall. They stare at him. None show fear. He sees no curiosity either. Just anger and resignation, and his hand tightens on his—

“Bucky?”

“I killed them.”

There’s a long second of silence before Bruce says, “Who?”

“Mission, Afghanistan. Objective, Level 6 targets, five leading operatives of the Ten Rings. Aim, elimination of destabilizing forces that threaten the objective of Hydra and its allies. Mission report, targets eliminated. Civilian— Civilian…”

Rings of raw flesh encircle their wrists by the restraints. Dirt cakes their feet. And he stares, his mouth compressing into a thin line behind his mask. He stares, feeling—

“Bucky?”

He jerks. His knee bangs against the table. The medical bag tumbles to the floor, and Bucky tries to control his breathing, but his throat convulses and his stomach heaves at the memory of the girls, chained and bleeding, at the memory of the girls, standing all in a row, so young, so young, with guns in their hands, and the Soldier stares, waiting for his orders, his mission against the Mandarin, and the one at the end, the small one, the one with the red hair, lifts her head and looks at him, angry and shaking, and he lifts the gun, his feet planted wide on the hood of the car, and she turns, she turns and looks at him, bleeding from where he shot her in the—

Bucky stumbles from the couch. The table overturns, scattering the medical supplies to the floor. Bruce calls after him, but Bucky staggers down the hall to Steve’s room. He shoves open the door, not stopping as it crashes back against the wall, and then crosses to the photographs, searching, searching, and finding… her.

The Widow.

Natasha.

“Bucky?”

Bucky whirls at the sound of Steve’s voice. Steve stands in the door to his bathroom, a towel around his waist and concern in his eyes. 

“I know her,” Bucky says, pointing back at the picture.

Steve looks past him, to the picture of Natasha in the ‘I’m with Stupid’ shirt. He blinks once and then his eyes slide back to Bucky. “You do,” he says slowly. “She was with me in—”

“No.” His hands tighten into fists. “Before.”

Steve nods then and starts to cross the room. “That’s right. She said that you two crossed paths in Odessa—”

“No, Steve. _Before_.”

Steve’s mouth snaps shut at this revelation. In his periphery, Bucky sees Bruce stop in the hall just outside the bedroom.

“Before?” Steve asks, frowning now.

Bucky nods. The memories press and crowd against him. He clenches his teeth and tries to hold on in the crush. “There was a mission. In Afghanistan. For allies of Hydra. Allies in Russia. And I saw her.” His eyes dart to the photograph, to the woman grown and seemingly whole, but in the glass, he sees the girl, slight and seething as she scowled at him. “She was— she was just a kid. But I remember. The look in her eyes…” 

He sympathized, though he didn’t know why, and he wanted— he wanted to help her. But he couldn’t. They watched him. And he saw the box. He knew Herr Zola was there, reporting to the director. But the girls… Bucky closes his eyes and swallows again. The ones in the cave weren’t as young as the Widow. She couldn’t have been more than five or six. The girls in the cave were in their teens, none, he wagers now, more than sixteen. He stares at them, with no intention to kill, the girls not a threat to him and not his target either. But he feels… The look in her eyes and in some of theirs, the anger, he feels it now, he remembers what the emotion is. Looking at them, he remembers. 

And he does more than simply kill the men keeping them.

He makes them suffer.

“Buck? Are you here?”

He is. He hears Steve draw closer, and his mind pitches like a ship on a wave, unsettled by the remembered smell of blood in the cave, by their screams as he draws closer—

“Buck?”

Bucky twists his head to the side, feeling nausea rise again.

“Buck, it’s 2014. You’re in—”

“I know where I am,” he grits out. “I’m just trying not to puke on your feet.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

Bucky gives a haphazard nod. He points in the general direction of the bathroom, still not sure if he can open his eyes without retching. “Can I…?”

“Of course.”

Cracking open one eye, Bucky inches past Steve. As he makes his way to the bathroom, he sees the entrance to the hall standing empty, Bruce no longer witness to his remembrance. Perhaps he had left the apartment altogether. No guilt manifests within Bucky at that, his desire for another medical eval about as strong as his desire for another spin in the chair. 

Passing by Steve, Bucky claps him on the arm, trying, with the gesture, to reassure him that he hasn’t gone, that he won’t, secure for now, the victims of this recalled rampage at least deserving of his torture. He receives a small smile in return, but the worry doesn’t quite diminish from Steve’s eyes. Bucky wonders if it ever will. It never had for him, despite Steve’s protests against his hovering, not even when Steve more than doubled in size and became as strong as an ox. 

The steam from Steve’s shower envelops him as he steps into the bathroom. Bucky nudges the door closed and stands in the lingering warmth, breathing in and out, slow, deep breaths that let him focus on the feel of the air his lungs and of the door behind his hands, slick and firm. The past demands, the men on their knees as he raised his knife, the Widow— Natasha— and the rest of the recruits all learning how to kill, but Bucky resists. Darcy would arrive soon, and Steve was already here, and he needed to stay. He hears Steve through the door, opening his closet and beginning to pull out clothes. He’d fought with the Widow in D.C. They’d hidden behind Steve’s shield as Bucky fired the grenade. Then he’d chased her and shot her and aimed again for the kill, only stopped by the arrival of Steve. 

Had she lived? She had when he shot her in Odessa, and that wound had been significantly more dire than this latest one. If she did, did she remember him? His own memories of his youth were a fragmentary haze, but then a figure like the Winter Soldier hadn’t populated his childhood like he had hers. If she did remember, she hadn’t told Steve. The surprise in his eyes when Bucky said he remembered her had been too genuine. Maybe her memory had been modified like his. Bucky clenches his hands, anger swooping fast and hot through him. Any group that willingly allied itself with Hydra was capable of such monstrous actions. And the way she had fought, the skills she had, he figures her group had used her just like Hydra had used him, as a weapon, as a tool to use. What use had a tool for feelings? Or memories? Or—

Jerking forward, Bucky reaches for the sink and cranks open the hot faucet. He drenches his face and beard, scrubs at his neck and hands, and then ducks down and douses his entire head. The water slides down his chest and back and soaks his shirt, he feels the heat burn, but he continues on, twisting his head to take in a mouthful to wash away the taste of bile still in his mouth, his rage at Hydra and at his twisted life. Him, her, the girls, the Starks… how many others? How many more made victim against their will?

Bucky closes his eyes and breathes in the steam billowing from the sink. Mist covers the mirror when he lifts his head a few minutes later, his anger suppressed but no less abated. The glass reflects to him a blur of a man. Bucky eyes it a moment before turning away. Darcy would be here, and he needed… he wanted to be here. 

In the bedroom, Steve stands half-dressed before the picture of him and the Widow— Natasha. She had a name, like Bucky did. He needed to use it, Natasha a part of Steve’s team and likely to pass through the building sometime, if only to assess him. It’s what he would do, if the situation were reversed.

“Is she alive?” he asks as he draws closer.

Steve nods. “In France.” He glances back over his shoulder at Bucky. “I asked her if she’d come in and talk to you, but—”

Bucky quirks a brow. “She declined to help the nut who shot her twice?”

Steve stares at him a long moment, his mouth compressing as it always does when Bucky makes a slight against himself. But the expected harangue doesn’t come. Instead, Steve says, “No. She wanted your permission first. Clint, too.” He points to the man in the photos with the bandage on his nose, the man with the bearing of a spy. “And Sam.” The hardness fades from Steve’s face then and a wry smile appears. “Basically they all told me to ‘cool my jets.’ Or, as Clint said, ‘You’ve already unleashed Stark on him. Give him some time to adjust before you introduce him to the rest of our crazy.”

His gaze slides to the hall at the mention of Tony. 

“He’s okay,” Steve says, moving toward him. “Tony’s not mad about what happened. Well, he _is_ , but not at you.”

Bucky looks at him, his heart in his throat. “Did he say something to you? Or Darcy?”

Steve shakes his head. “Tony wants you here, Buck. He’s just… He’s angry. At Hydra. For you and for… everything. We all are.”

Bucky nods, but he can’t hold the look, overcome again by the thought of all of them helping him. He understands their need to, he _remembers_ it, he remembers feeling it, with the girls and with Natasha, with Darcy in the diner, the rage that had flared within him when he caught sight of Hydra running for her, Darcy pinned back against the door of the diner with nowhere to run, with nothing by a shock prod she couldn’t use in her hands. And even before, with Steve and the rest of the Commandos, with those in his unit that couldn’t endure the torture of their capture and from their captors, with the kids on his block that were too small or too foreign, with Steve and his sister, and his breath stills then at the thought of his sister. He had forgotten her, forgotten Becca, and the rage that possessed the other possesses him again at what Hydra had stolen from him and what he was just now, with sweat and blood and broken gasps of tears, getting back. 

A knock sounds on the front door then, a cheery series of raps that indicate Darcy, and the quick pound of Bucky’s pulse begins to amble away from anger to something softer, something _better_. He licks his lips and breathes in and tries to shed the rage.

“You want me to?” Steve asks as Bucky turns for the door.

Bucky shakes his head. Darcy had seen him in worse, soaked in blood, broken and bruised from their escape from the diner. Water would be fine. Water, but not sweat, which breaks out on his palms and face as he strides down the hall. He wipes his hands on his pants, but the gesture does nothing to calm his nerves. His gut flutters and twists and his mouth goes dry as he rounds the corner for the foyer. Bucky feels a bead of water drip down his face. He swipes at his hair, shoving a hand back through it to push the strands from his face. Then he opens the door.

Darcy stands on the other side, in denims like him and another soft sweater, a dark red one this time, smaller than those she’s worn before, one fitted to her body, and Bucky tries not to stare at her but he does, Darcy lush and soft and whole and gorgeous. She burns away the fury within him, leaves him lust-stunned and dizzy. Breathless, he watches as she lifts her head, but before she meets his eyes, she goes utterly still and her jaw drops open.

“Are you serious?” she asks after a moment. Bucky cocks his head at the elevated pitch to her voice, at how she waves a hand at him from tip to toe. “The jeans _and_ the shirt? Really? _Really?_ ”

Bucky glances down. His tee clings to most of his chest, the white cotton transparent in many places. He hadn’t noticed, or he had, but only in observance of its occurrence, not in recognition of its effects on others. But now he recognizes. And he remembers. He’d been attractive before, all his life really, women giving him second and third glances, and some men too sometimes, both before and during the war. He’d observed the effects of his physical proximity upon Darcy. He knew he could make her blush, as he makes her blush now, but he hadn’t quite understood, conditioned as he was to transcend the physical, to abolish all concepts of self. 

But now he does.

Glancing up, he finds her lips parted and eyes locked on his thighs, at maximum capacity in his current pair of pants. In the spirit of experimentation and giddy, sly seduction, he shifts, leaning now against the door. Her eyes go dark and her breath stills in her chest, and Bucky can’t help the beginning of a grin that comes to his face.

“Why?” she asks. “No. How? You said you knew how to shower. This… this…”

“I do know. But I’m a dirty boy. I have to wash away my sins.”

Her eyes snap up to his and narrow. “I don’t think that’s meant to be a literal thing.”

“Everything’s literal to a Catholic, doll.”

Darcy arches a brow. “Doll?”

The grin unfurls then, imbued with all the swagger of Bucky Barnes, born and bred Brooklyn boy. “I could go back to dugong, if you want.”

“I thought we had moved on to the M’s.”

Bucky tilts his head to the side. “Didn’t peg you for a moll.”

Darcy raises her other brow.

“Gun moll,” he explains. “Dame who runs with gangsters.”

Darcy takes a moment to respond. Bucky watches as she cocks a hip and studies him, letting her eyes slink down from head to heels. His breath quickens at her perusal, at the way she purses her lips. He feels the gaze as a caress, and the urge to kiss her rises within him, but Bucky remains still, the pendulum arc of his emotions that morning giving him pause. 

“Gangster,” she says after a moment. “No. A tall, dark, and mysterious stranger in a diner with a shady past and a bag full of guns?”

She lets the implication hang in the air, the most overt either of them had been to this between them, this attraction that Steve told him to seize and his fear cast into doubt. Darcy moves toward him now to enter the apartment. She peers up at him as she passes by, her blue eyes bright and her cheeks still pink, and his brain shorts as he catches the scent of her shampoo, at the warmth of her hand as her fingertips brush against his metal hand, setting the sensors alight.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit about my theory behind Bucky's Afghanistan mission. In the late 80s, Russia and Afghanistan were at war. It serves as a perfect convergence of various MCU canons, specifically Natasha in the Red Room and its affiliation with Russia, Hydra's aims of world order, and the Ten Rings goal of utter chaos. The Red Room borrows Bucky from Hydra to take out the Ten Rings and try to turn the tide of the war in Afghanistan back in Russia's favor.


	8. Part Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Breakfast with Bucky, Darcy, and Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. Excessive amounts of work + being sick + some difficulty writing equals a delay. Regarding the chapter, Dazzy Vance was a baseball pitcher for various Brooklyn teams in the 1920s-1930s, including the Dodgers. And I couldn’t help reusing the egg idea from “The Best Laid Plans” series, not with what it spawned here. Also, the mature rating kicks in for this chapter.
> 
> Thank you for the comments, kudos, and bookmarks! "That Which You Seek" is nearing 2700 kudos, and I am just blown away by all of the support. Thank you again, and I hope you enjoy!

And The Wounded Sing  
Part Eight

 

Smoke billows around them from the eggs. Darcy flaps a placemat at it, trying to push it into the open exhaust, while in the living room Steve reassures Jarvis that the apartment is not, in fact, on fire, and Bucky thinks as he grabs the burning pan from the stove to dump into the sink that this should be a disaster, but he can’t. Darcy’s laughter echoes all around him, and the memory of her popping strawberries into her mouth as they waited for the eggs to set still lights up his mind. It’s why the eggs had burned, Bucky too distracted by her and the way she looked at him as she lifted each berry to bite, how the juice stained her lips, turning them as red as her sweater. The thought distracts him again as he shoves the pan beneath the faucet. He wrenches it too far with his right hand, ripping it clear from the sink. 

Water gushes into the air like an eruption from a geyser, spurting in all directions. Bucky shoves his hand over the spray to try to stem the flow, but all he accomplishes is making it rebound off his palm to soak _him_. He curses at the cold blast, and behind him, Darcy starts to laugh harder. Eyes narrowed, Bucky glances back over his shoulder at her to glare, but the sight of her doubled over in delight banishes his irritation and brings a smile to his face. It also brings his need to be a complete and utter little shit again. Shifting to the side, Bucky tilts his hand, directing the spray away from him and straight at Darcy. She squeaks and bolts upright as the cold water hits her. He watches, laughing, as she tries to block the water with the placemat, but it wilts in her hand. She starts to edge away, but she loses her footing on the wet floor, and he watches, not laughing now, as her left arm pinwheels, seeking an anchor, her right arm still pinned for another week in her sling. 

Bucky darts forward as Darcy smacks back against the counter. Her hand comes down by the carton of eggs, but slides off with a slick screech, her wet palm finding no purchase. He reaches her then, catching her under her right arm and on her waist before she falls.

“Darcy? Are you okay? Are you—?”

“I’m fine,” she says as he helps her to stand. Water drips from her nose and plasters a few strands of hair to her face. The sensors in his left hand register the dampness of her sweater, the rapid flutter of her heartbeat through her body. He closes his eyes and breathes in, trying to ease down, and he nearly misses, as he does, her soft murmur of war.

“But you won’t be.”

The egg cracks against his chest as he opens his eyes. Laughter shakes her as she smushes the yolk into his shirt, as she reaches up and pats his cheek with sticky fingers. Bucky meets her eyes and finds them shining with delight. At the sight, the thrum of his heart veers from panic to the giddy twist of lust and joy that had been storming him from the moment they shook hands in the motel. He opens his mouth to respond, but then he spots the second egg gripped in her right hand, nearly concealed by the confines of her sling.

He looks at Darcy again. His gut swoops at the sly look in her eyes, at the recognition that she’s flirting with him, that they’ve made it back to this moment, found just before the chair at the first breakfast that Bucky made for her. He hadn’t understood then the significance of his actions or of her responses, only that seeing her smile made him happy and that the flush to her cheeks when he tangled his legs with hers beneath the table sent a thrill of pleasure through him. He had merely acted on instinct, on the long buried self of Bucky Barnes, and he’d nearly lost it all a few hours later, all that he’d gained in his time with Darcy, blown to bits by the chair and the harsh clarity of understanding exactly who he had been and what he had done. He’d nearly lost himself beneath the weight of that knowledge, but she and Steve, Tony and Bruce, all of them helped save him, helped bring him here, where he can ease his right hand from beneath her arm, down to her waist, where he can complete the set and hold her with both hands, understanding in full the choice that he makes. 

“That’s the last egg,” he says, cocking a brow at her, trying not to smile but failing in his efforts. “I said I’d make you breakfast.”

Darcy makes no such effort to hide her grin. “You did,” she concedes. “But breakfast isn’t really in your skill set, bear. And neither is counting.”

Bucky has time to tilt his head in confusion before the third and final egg smacks him on the hip. Turning, he spots Steve crouched by the end of the couch, a smug little smirk on his face as he watches the yolk drip down his jeans. 

“And a _beautiful_ curve ball from Dazzy Vance.”

Bucky narrows his eyes. “I’ll show you Dazzy, punk.”

“Oh, yeah?” Steve says as he stands. “You and what egg?”

The egg pops into view, perched on a pair of gorgeous yolk-covered fingers inches from Bucky’s face. 

“This one,” he says, plucking the egg from Darcy’s hand. 

Steve glances at the egg and then at Darcy. “Traitor.”

She shrugs. “All’s fair in love and breakfast war, Cap. Besides, I’m a totally fabulous egg moll femme fatale. My loyalty lies with no man.”

Bucky turns to her, pouting. She shrugs again, making an admirable attempt to restrain her smile, and he’s about to lean back in to tease her for her treachery when he hears Steve make a break for it, leaping over the couch and darting for the door. Bucky charges after him, egg in hand. Steve loses a few precious seconds opening the front door, but he makes it through before Bucky can whip the egg at him. Sprinting forward, Bucky takes the door at a curve, which makes him miss the fact that Steve has stopped in the hall, which makes him plow straight into Steve, which makes them both tumble to the floor in an ungainly heap of genetically engineered super soldier. The egg flies from Bucky’s hand, and he cringes in preparation for it splattering against his head, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t fall on him or on Steve or on the floor around them. Glancing up, he sees it held by a willowy redhead who stares down at him and Steve with a small smile on her face. 

Bucky tenses, though he knows that she must be a friendly if Jarvis allowed her in the building, much less on their floor. When he does, Steve stops grinding his elbow into Bucky’s side and peers up as well. 

“Oh. Hey, Pepper.”

Her smile grows at the casual greeting. “Steve. Everything all right?”

He nods, rolling off of Bucky and up to his feet in one smooth motion. “Yes. Well, ah, no. We kind of… ripped the handle off the kitchen sink, but I’ll pay for it,” he continues quickly.

She shakes her head before he can say anything more. “Tony wouldn’t let you, and neither would I. Speaking of…” She tilts her head to the ceiling then. Bucky stands as she does, and her gaze flits to him briefly. Bucky watches, but the woman— Pepper— shows no sign of concern at him being upright. Instead, she says, “Jarvis, tell Tony, again, that everything’s fine.”

“Right away, Ms. Potts.”

As Jarvis clicks off, Pepper turns her attention fully to Bucky. They eye each other a moment, she his soaked clothes and blobs of egg, he her elegant pants and diamond earrings. She didn’t look like someone who exploded, or could explode, but then Bucky looked far from the deadliest assassin in Hydra history, so he can’t judge by appearances. He can, though, by her lack of fear, which indicates that either she has no clue about who he is, an option that he dismisses given her presence on the floor and acquaintance with Steve and Tony, or that she does know who he is but she is, for some reason, like the Doctor, unafraid of him.

“You seem to have come out the worse for wear,” she says now, pointing at his chest with the final egg.

Bucky nods, aware of Steve watching him, waiting to see how he’ll react. 

They both wait, but he says nothing more. Her face softens at his silence. As it does, the present concedes to the past and before him stands not Stark’s gal dame boss, but Steve’s ma, peering at him the first time that he walks Steve home after rescuing him from a fight. Bucky can’t even smile at her, can’t try to charm her to go easy on Steve for fighting again like he said he was gonna do, trying to impress Steve into being his friend. He just stands before her and waits for her judgment, stunned by her quiet strength and hoping that—

“Then I believe this belongs to you.”

Bucky blinks. He finds her arm outstretched and the egg proffered to him on a steady palm. He ducks his head, his throat unexpectedly tightening at thoughts of her and Mrs. Rogers mixed with those of his own ma, tiny and gregarious. Reaching out, he clasps the top of the egg. He’s careful not to touch her as he claims it, giving her a stiff nod of thanks as he steps back. “Ma’am.”

“Pepper. Please.”

Bucky glances up at her, but the same grace that denied him calling Steve’s ma Sarah denies him now. “Ms. Potts.”

Pepper hesitates, studying him, likely, to see if she can change his mind. When he doesn’t relent, she nods her acquiescence. “And you? Steve said to call you Bucky, but—”

“That’s fine. Or James. Whatever works.”

Bucky sees Steve cock his head to the side. He raises both brows, but Bucky ignores him and the urge to smash the egg against his head, focusing instead upon breathing and not shuffling his feet like a chastened child before Pepper. 

A few seconds of silence passes before she speaks. “James, then.” The warmth he hears prompts him to meet her eyes. “Anytime you want to talk,” she says when he does, her voice softer than before, “you let Jarvis know. Day or night, okay?”

He nods, unable to speak, her offer plucking at something old and raw within him. 

Silence reigns again. Bucky feels Steve watch him. Pepper too. He keeps his gaze fixed on the egg in his hand, wanting to turn and retreat, but also not wanting to be rude, so he stands and he stares and, after a moment, attention shifts away from him. 

“Let Tony know when he should schedule repairs,” Pepper says to Steve. “He has, uh, ideas that I said needed your approval.”

“Will do. And I’m sorry again about the sink.”

“It’s no problem. Really, Steve. You live and work with Tony as long as I have your definition of serious destruction starts to change. Significantly.” She turns for the elevator then, waving goodbye at them over her shoulder. “Enjoy the rest of breakfast.”

“Thanks. You, too.”

A second later, the elevator closes. Bucky releases a slow breath and shifts the egg in his hand, seeking equilibrium, the exploding woman not at all what he expected. But then none on Steve’s team had been, not from the first with Darcy and her instantaneous decision to help him, despite his less than welcoming behavior, or Thor with his power and presence outmatched by his regard for others, or Tony who had helped him despite his sins against his family or the Doctor and his worn, wry humor or Pepper now, as still and cool as a deep pond. 

“Buck? You okay?”

He nods and glances at Steve, who stares at him with his brows still raised. He considers telling Steve the truth about the resemblance he discerned, but one of them, at least, should be able to interact with her successfully. Instead, he says, “She reminded me of someone I knew.”

Steve waits for further clarification. Bucky only sends him a small smile before turning for the apartment. 

“Seriously?” he says from behind him. “That’s all you’re going to give me?”

“Nope.” Bucky whirls around then and chucks the egg at Steve’s chest, so fast that Steve has no way to stop it. The resounding splat makes Steve scowl and Darcy laugh. Bucky flashes a mirror of Steve’s little smirk when he looks up at Bucky, still scowling. “ _That’s_ Dazzy, you wannabe punk.”

Still smirking, he turns back around and continues to the apartment. Darcy stands by the door, her sling off and clasped in her right hand. The sight of it tempers the glow of want that flares inside him at the mess of curls about her head and the way her sweater, damp now, clings to her chest. “Let me guess,” she says as he approaches. “You wanted to be a pitcher.”

Bucky nods. Steve passes by then, smearing egg onto Bucky’s shoulder as he does. Bucky rolls his eyes and waits for him to do the same to Darcy, but all she receives from Steve is a tip of his head. She gives him a clumsy salute in response. Bucky waits for Steve to enter the apartment before he zeroes in on her sling. “Why aren’t you wearing that?”

She narrows her eyes at him. “Why aren’t I Ms. Lewis?”

“Because you’ve seen me naked.” 

Darcy flushes at his response. Her eyes flicker to his crotch and thighs as Bucky stops before her. He leans against the wall, crossing one foot in front of the other, and grins as her breath catches in her chest. “Eyes up here, dollface.”

She jerks her gaze up to meet his. Her blush intensifies as she catches him grinning. “You’re a menace, you know that?”

“You can talk. Why do you think I burned the eggs?”

“A previously unknown grudge against chickens?”

He laughs at that. “Yeah. Chickens in fancy sweaters.”

“It _is_ a fancy sweater, isn’t it?” She lifts her left hand then and glides it down her waist, slowly, watching his reaction. His jaw goes stiff as she plucks at the hem to pull it taut against her chest. “It’s nice and pretty and soft, but unfortunately,” she says, releasing the hem to poke him in the arm, “ _someone_ decided to be cute and get it wet, and now I have to go change. But breakfast, part two? There’s food in the common kitchen. I can make us French toast, unless you want to embark on another culinary adventure?”

Bucky shakes his head. 

“Didn’t think so,” she says, grinning. “So, twenty minutes? After, I can show you the wonders of the Wii and the beauty that is the Rainbow Road.”

“Sounds good.”

She starts to walk past him then. Before he realizes what he’s doing, Bucky has reached out and snagged her hand. He tugs her back around until she faces him, but he freezes when she is, Darcy staring up at him, her face open and expectant. His gaze drops to her lips, and he pulls in a breath to say something, anything, about her and him and this and how it’s more than he deserves but what he wants because she brought him in from the cold and the dark, but the air lodges in his throat like a goddamn brick and all he can do is grit his teeth and close his eyes. 

A few seconds pass then Darcy threads her fingers through his and clasps his hand. He holds on as tight as he dares. “I get it,” she says softly. “It’s what I tried to tell you last night. That I… That I—” She breaks off, laughing. Bucky opens his eyes, finds Darcy shaking her head as she stares up at the ceiling. “Jesus, you’d think for someone who talks so much that this would be easy.” She licks her lips, and Bucky wants to help her, but the revelation he knows she’s about to voice stuns him, sending him back to the early days of their relationship when everything she did either stunned or exasperated him. So he watches as she draws in a long breath, as she preps herself, and then as she looks at him and says, “I… like you. A lot. In a, you know, more than friends kind of way. And I think that you do too. Like me, that is.” She pauses then and a wicked gleam appears in her eyes. “Unless you squirm like that at the thought of other girls naked.”

He does now at her reference to the previous night and the instantaneous physical effect that the thought of her naked had upon him. “You noticed.”

She smiles at him. “Yeah, I did. Why do you think I wore this sweater?”

Bucky gives her a look at that. “Now who’s the menace?”

“Me. Loud and proud.” The wicked gleam lasts a moment longer before fading to a more somber glow. “I don’t want to push you into anything you’re uncomfortable with though.”

Bucky rubs his thumb across the back of her hand. “Doll, the kind of discomfort that I feel when I look at you is definitely the good kind. Believe me.”

The smile that breaks out across her face blinds him, makes him breathless. “Good,” she says, sounding just as breathless. “Good. Good. That’s—”

Bucky cocks a brow at her. “Good?”

Darcy surprises him again, bypassing sass for sincerity. “Yes. It is. _This_ is.” She lifts their hands and points at the both of them. “It’s good and it’s amazing and it’s unbelievable, and not just for you, but for me too. All of this is. And I don’t— I don’t want to rush it until we’re ready, but I don’t want to not rush it either, if that makes sense. Because you should let good things happen in life, especially after a shit ton of bad things, but figuring out ‘you and me’ can be intense on top of figuring out you _and_ me, so—”

“Let it breathe.”

She smiles at him again. “Exactly. I’m here where I want to be, and I’m with, you know, who I want to be with. I just…”

She trails off. His brow creases as her smile fades. “You just what?”

Darcy hesitates. She drops her gaze, lifts it back up, wrenches it to the side, and blows out a long breath. Then she looks back at him and she stares, her gaze intent, probing for something. He lets her stare, though he feels a lick of discomfort swirl through him as she does. After a moment more, she says quietly, “I just don’t want you to be afraid.”

Bucky tenses. “I have a reason to be. You do too. You saw for yourself how dangerous Hydra is. They’re not—” 

“That’s not what I meant.”

He stops. His mouth snaps shut and the frown deepens upon his face. Darcy hesitates again then she squares her shoulders and lifts her sling. Bucky freezes at the sight of it, at the significance.

He’s afraid of himself. 

Of what he’s done. Of what he might do.

“I’m sorry,” she says now. “This isn’t how I wanted the morning to go. I—” She shakes her head again and starts to pull her hand away. “I should go before I say something else phenomenally dumb.”

His hand clamps down upon hers, and Darcy stills in her efforts to leave. Bucky stares at her a moment, as frozen as she, and it’s only when she presses her lips together in unease that he speaks. “It’s not dumb. Because you’re right. I am afraid. I…” Bucky breaks their gaze. He breathes in and looks past her to the blank taupe of the hall, the air brick returning, but then Darcy squeezes his hand and the air expels from his chest in a rush, taking with it his fear from the past few weeks. “I’m afraid. I can’t even look in a mirror because I’m afraid of what I’ll see. That I’ll see that this… that this isn’t real. Because that’s what I did in cryo. I dreamed. But more than that, I… I—” He stops and shucks out another quick breath. Darcy peers at him, her brow creased but her eyes soft. Looking at her, Bucky swallows his discomfort and continues. “I know that this is. Real. And I don’t… I don’t want to see it. Me. I don’t want to see me. See what I’ve become.”

Bucky stops again, shaking too hard to continue. He closes his eyes and tries to stave off the tears that come, but he can’t. He hears a soft swish and then Darcy’s moving in, gathering him into a hug. Bucky pulls her in, wrapping both arms around her. He keeps his left hand flat but curls his right around her sweater, tangling his fingers in her hair, grounding himself in her. She grips him just as tight, her hands winding around his waist and up his back to clutch at his shirt. It’s only when she presses her cheek to his chest that he remembers the egg sticking to his tee, but Darcy makes no move to pull away, only knocking her knee against his as she shifts to speak. 

“I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. I’ve tried, but I can’t. But I see something worth seeing when I look at you.” She pulls her head back far enough to look at him. There’s a bit of eggshell stuck to her cheek and tears gum her eyelashes, but a faint smile curves her lips and the look in her eyes as she stares up at him is fond and sly. “And it’s not just because you’re hotter than asphalt in summertime. Though you are.”

A gasp of a laugh escapes him. “Good to know.”

“It is. And if I get my way, it’s something you’ll eventually believe.”

Bucky peers down at her. Three weeks ago, she had stood before him, her shredded sweater in hand as she declared how she would never let Hydra touch him again. And now this. Swallowing hard, Bucky eases his left hand around and touches the tips of his fingers to her face. Her lips part and she shivers, but not in fear, and the trust that she places in him nearly knocks him flat. “You always get what you want?” he asks after a moment.

“No,” she admits. Then she tilts her chin toward the apartment behind him. “But he does, and he wants it just as much as I do. Now,” she continues before he can respond, “how about breakfast? Tasty foodstuffs should always follow emotional disclosures.”

Bucky nods, and they ease apart. Darcy doesn’t move away though. She leans into him instead, her eyes sliding past him to the open apartment door. “Breakfast in twenty, Cap! Common room! Be there, or I’ll have Jarvis torment you with Justin Bieber!”

Five seconds of stunned silence pass before Steve speaks. “I don’t know who that is.”

“The worst thing ever to come out of Canada, so your spangled butt better be ready for some French toast.”

Bucky hears Steve snort. A second later, he does too when Darcy winks at him. She steps back and collects her sling before crossing to the elevator. Bucky watches her press the call button. The doors slide open immediately, but Darcy hesitates before stepping inside. She bounces the sling against her leg a couple times before she looks back over her shoulder and says to him, “I left something for you. In your room.” Her eyes slide back to the open door. Her cheeks pink and she bites down on her bottom lip briefly before turning to him again. “Use it wisely, bear.”

With that, she disappears into the elevator. Bucky’s spinning on his heels before the doors even close, striding back into the apartment and ignoring Steve as he exits the kitchen to meet him. In his room, his eyes sweep his sparse possessions, searching for what she could have left. He finds his camera and photo printer pulled from the closet and placed on the floor by his bed. On the bed itself he spies a photo, face-down. Darting forward, Bucky snatches it up and flips it around. In the photo, Darcy kneels at the end of his bed. She stares up into the camera, her back arched in a glorious curve like a Vargas girl. She’s pulled her sweater taut against her body like she did in the hall, but in the bright flare of the camera flash, he can see through the fabric to her black bra beneath. Lust ignites within him, hardening his dick, nearly making him miss Steve’s approach down the hall. He has enough time to shove the photo beneath his pillow before Steve pokes his head into the room.

“You want to shower before we go?”

Bucky tries to swallow, but his mouth is dry. His right hand clenches around the bedding, inches from the picture. He hesitates, wanting, but her final words rise up through the wanton fog in his brain and, instead, he shakes his head. Use it wisely. Later. When Steve slept.

Christ, he needed a door. 

“No,” he says, wincing a bit at his strangled tone. “But I, uh, could use some clean clothes.”

Steve nods, too oblivious or likely too polite to comment on his state of distress. As soon as he disappears into his room, Bucky flops back onto his bed. His fingertips brush against the picture, and, lying there, he lets himself smile.

*

In the dark and the gleam of starlight, the red sweater bunches in his hands. Burgundy, Darcy had said. Like wine. She tastes like wine as Bucky leans in to kiss her. Her sweater bunches in his hands then, clumping and folding as he seeks skin. When his hands grasp her waist, Darcy shivers, and Bucky does too, Darcy as warm and soft as the early summer sun. Her nails dig into his shoulders, prompting a groan to well deep within him. He winds one arm around her waist and up her back, pulling her closer, then he slips the tips of his fingers beneath the strap of her bra. Darcy shivers again as he traces the dips in her skin from the elastic and pushes herself up on tiptoes to deepen the kiss.

Bucky grips one hip then and hauls her close. She loops her legs around his waist and threads her fingers in his hair before tilting his head back to smile down at him. Skin like cream and stars in her eyes, and Bucky surges forward to kiss her again. Darcy parts her lips and he tastes the strawberries that they ate when their tongues touch, a smooth slide that wrenches another groan from him. She pulls back then, breathless, cants her head back and bares her throat, gasping in sweet little moans that make Bucky’s hips jerk forward, seeking friction. He brushes his lips where her pulse throbs, fluttering against the skin. She smells like sugar, candy sweet, like the taffy that he buys sometimes at Coney, and he works his left hand up from her hip, up, up, as she eases down, up beneath her sweater, down from his waist, up to skim the curve of her abdomen, down to ring his hips, up and up and up to hook the tip of one finger around the cool satin of her bra, Bucky tugging down as Darcy settles down, rolling her hips forward as he cups a callused hand around her breast, as he drags a thumb against the hard press of her nipple, and he and she shudder when they touch, Bucky hard and Darcy hot, and he, and he, and he—

—wakes, trembling, to the sound of the toilet flush in Steve’s bedroom. Night dims the lights of the city into a haze beyond his windows. Bucky pants for breath, his skin damp, Darcy in his head still and his hands clenching for her. He hadn’t been able to find the right moment, Steve laying awake far longer than Bucky anticipated. He himself had fallen asleep before Steve had. Now his dick swells against his sweatpants and he shifts on the bed, seeking relief; the small bit of friction of pants against dick sends his body arcing off the bed, seeking more, and before he can process, he’s shoved a hand down his pants and touched himself for the first time in seventy years.

“ _Jesus_ …”

His hand fumbles, this muscle memory lost, but even the fumblings send a wave of heat washing over him. Bucky closes his eyes and bites his lip and uses, for once, his enhanced memory for something good, drawing the dream back to him, melding the images with those of that morning, of the real Darcy in her real red sweater and how she smiled at him as he burned the eggs, how she popped the strawberries into her mouth one by one until— 

“Bucky?”

Fuck. His hand stills on his dick as Steve steps into the hall. “‘m fine,” he mumbles, striving for sleepy in his tone rather than horny.

“Are you sure—”

“Yes.” Lips as red as her sweater, and she reaches past him for the butter. Her arm brushes his chest, and the shiver he recalls causes his hand to flex, to clamp down on his dick, which sends another bright surge of lust through him, pushing his breath from his lungs in a sharp exhale. 

“Uh—”

“Go. Away.”

But Steve doesn’t. He moves closer, his footsteps soft with concern. “Buck—”

Bucky rips his hand from his pants and lifts his head to glare at the door where Steve appears a second later, the anticipated concern creasing his brow. “Christ, Steve. Can’t a guy jack off in peace?”

Steve blinks at him and then blinks again before pivoting on his heel and returning to his room. Bucky sighs and squirms on the bed. The squirming sends his pants sliding against his dick once more, and the tease of the cotton reminds him of Darcy pressed against him in the motel room as she slept. The sensation of her hair tickling his neck or her shirt soft against his hand baffled him then, Bucky too focused on the fact that she trusted him enough to fall asleep beside him. But now he understands and— 

“Here.”

He turns his head in time to see a small bottle fly towards him. Left hand darting out, he snatches it from the air, and he’s lucky that he doesn’t crush it in his grip, realizing, at the last second, the presence of liquid inside.

“What…”

“One of the best inventions of the modern world,” Steve says, the smile in his voice still clear as he turns away. “Something better than Vaseline.”

The door to his room closes a second later. Bucky peers at the bottle, baffled by the brand name, but then Steve’s words process, and he moves, shoving off his sweats and snapping open the cap with a flick of his thumb. The liquid spurts cool and slick into his palm, and Bucky takes just a second to slide it around before reaching once more for his dick.

“Oh _god_ …”

He writhes on the bed again, his hips snapping up as his hand slides down, as his heels slide against the sheets, and he can’t recall the last time his body felt good. Moments of calm when he hugged Darcy, when she touched him, and that thought hijacks all, the thought of Darcy touching him, of her hand where his hand now moves, of her hair tickling him once more as she perches above him, looking upon him as she did in his dream. He tightens his grip, and heat radiates through his body, licking slow along his nerves. Because she would. She would. She would do this, with him, Darcy looking, no, staring, no, _ogling_ him more than once that morning. Someday she would, though she shouldn’t— 

His rhythm falters as doubt grips hold. Bucky grits his teeth, not wanting to think but just to _feel_. He intends to close his eyes to enhance his focus, but the corkboard catches his attention before he can. His new photo hangs displayed, the one of Darcy in her sweater, and even in the dark, Bucky sees the gleam in her eyes and the tilt to her lips that makes him dizzy. He recalls how she blushed and flapped her hand at him that morning and how she bit her bottom lip as she peered at him from the corners of her eyes, and she wouldn’t— she wouldn’t if she didn’t— if she didn’t see something— if he wasn’t— if he wasn’t like she said— the thought stalls and stutters in his mind, the idea as foreign to Bucky as physical pleasure— if he wasn’t— his thumb strokes the head of his dick and he stares at her picture, at the dip of her waist beneath the red, red cotton, at the swell of her breasts, and pleasure unfurls within him, making his mouth fall open and his eyes fall shut because Darcy wouldn’t— she wouldn’t— she wouldn’t unless she— Bucky quickens his pace, and his legs tremble and his stomach contracts— because she wouldn’t— not unless she— not unless he was— not unless he truly was— was— he pants as electricity lights his nerves, not harsh and biting like the chair but warm and tingling, and he chases the sensation, twisting his hand and ripping the sheet and arcing off the bed, tensing and tipping and tightening, toeing the edge, and then— and then— and then tumbling down into something beautiful.

“ _Holy_ fuck,” he gasps as he comes, his body going boneless as he does. The room echoes to him his curse and prayer, mixed with the harsh scrape of his breath. Bucky revels in the sensations, in the laxity of his muscles and the quick pounding of his heart and the unexpected, delicious sense of silence permeating his mind. 

*


	9. Part Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky has another nightmare and talks with Bruce.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's happening again. I have the rest of the story planned out, there are three parts including this one, but I write such long scenes that I have to break it up. There was another scene planned for this section that I'm shifting to the next, so there will be between 3 and 6 more parts left in the story depending on how long individual scenes are after I write them.
> 
> I just found an awesome playlist that milverton made on 8-tracks for "That Which You Seek." Go check it out and leave some likes because it was very enjoyable: [Pulling Our Weight.](https://8tracks.com/milverton/pulling-our-weight)
> 
> For this chapter, in comic canon (and implied in movie canon), the Winter Soldier kills JFK. The _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ reference concerns the 1931 film which is infamous for its transformation scene.

And The Wounded Sing  
Part Nine

In the building by the knoll, he tracks the car. Driving slow, the top down, the figures inside are exposed and vulnerable as they wave to the gathered crowd. He sights first the woman, her dark hair shining in the sun, then the man beside her, the acknowledged leader of the free world. He smiles and waves and his suit stretches tight as he twists around to greet those streaming behind. Through the scope, his smile blinds. Bucky blinks and shakes his head, hearing a whisper, a hush of a howl in the back of his mind, but then clarity returns and he shoulders the gun. As he takes aim, the woman leans forward and presses a button on the dash. The beat shifts and the strings crunch and the howl in his mind grows, culminating in a crescendo of screams that he silences with the pull of his trigger.

The star guides his way, making his bullet sure and true. At the shot, the tire explodes, sending the car tumbling down the hill. He follows, his eyes tracking the pink pillbox that catches on a gust of wind. Glass crunches beneath his boots as he strides down the embankment. The man lies on the ground, bleeding red through his blue suit. In the car, the woman hangs, suspended by the seatbelts like an arm in a sling. She catches his eye in the mirror. Blood and lavender scents the air. Bucky reaches into the car, brushes cool fingers against her cheek. She shivers at the touch and he flinches, but clarity returns as the speakers crackle and the static whispers and the howl subsides in his mind. He closes his hand around her throat. She tries to speak, always she does, but he tightens his grip, and thunder rumbles in the sky beyond as her light fades and she dies.

The man on the ground gasps and wheezes, panic setting in as Bucky turns. The star illuminates the cuts and bruises, the knife strapped and gleaming to his thigh, the doubts in his mind. Gazing down, he expects defiance, but despair greets him instead, and he stills at this, the world wrong, but he couldn’t go back. Order remains to him, and pain too, and as he kneels on the ground, the second greets him as an old friend as a cracked and bloody question swirls up through the sky.

_Bucky?_

He wakes, gasping, his hands clutching the sheets. Cold sweat clings to his skin, and his heart races in his chest. Bucky sucks in a lungful of air followed by another and another, but the crisp breaths fail to ease his discomfort. Lurching upright, he reaches for the glass of water by his bed and he downs the lot, trying to drown the nightmare of Steve and Darcy in the car, in the place of Howard and his wife and… a president before? Bucky swallows at the vague memory. Hydra never told him more than he needed to know, the logistics of his assignments only. He seldom knew the identities of his marks, unless those proved to be tactically advantageous. They never even told him Steve’s name or his Captain America moniker. He’d just been briefed on how well Steve fought and his durability, nothing more, nothing about the man, the soul within. Just how best to kill the body.

Bucky shivers at the thought of Hydra. The shiver carries him to his feet and out through his new door, installed the day before as he hid in Darcy’s apartment. He stops in the doorway to Steve’s room and peers inside, but he spies no one in the bed, the sheets and blankets as pristine as they had been that morning. Pulse thrumming, he makes his way to the living room. Steve sleeps on the couch, slumped before a stack of files on the coffee table. Lawyer résumés and court cases that bore even the smallest shred of relevance to his situation, information gathered to prevent him from being transferred from his Hydra imprisonment to incarceration here for his crimes against the state. He wonders now what the Hydra files released by the Widow contained about him, whether his sordid history lay bare for all to see or if even Hydra treated him like a ghost, reducing his existence to the barest minimum.

He wonders how much Steve knows.

Shivering again, Bucky strides forward. He eases a file from Steve’s hands, placing it beside the rest on the table without glancing inside, then he pokes Steve in the knee and says, “Come on, pal. Let’s get you to bed.”

Steve flinches at the touch, but he doesn’t wake. Frowning, Bucky starts to reach for him again, only to stop as he recognizes the grip of a nightmare. Then Steve whimpers and Bucky moves, pushing the table away and crouching unencumbered before the couch.

“Steve. _Steve_.” Bucky lays a hand on his knee again and gives it a firm shake. “Come on, buddy. Wake up. You’re having a—”

Steve shoots up, his eyes open but wild, his mind still caught in the dream. Bucky retracts his hand, inches back half a foot, and waits. Steve stares blind for a few seconds before focusing on Bucky. When he does, his face twists and he closes his eyes, and Bucky feels his throat swell at the soft hitch of breath in Steve’s chest.

“It’s okay,” he says softly. “ _I’m_ okay. I’m here. I’m fine.”

Steve nods. He lifts a hand and rubs it across his face. Bucky tenses at the glimpse of a tremor in his fingers, testament to the brutality of his nightmare. Steve blows out a long breath followed by another and another, and Bucky wants to laugh, nothing else he can do, the two of them haunted by more ghosts than one lifetime deserved.

Rather than laugh, he says, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Steve cracks open an eye. He peers at Bucky sidelong, a faint wisp of humor easing the burden on his brow. “That’s my line.”

“Technically, that’s Darcy’s line. But I don’t think she’d mind us borrowing it.” He pauses then, the memory of the motel surfacing, of his prior attempt to comfort someone upon waking from a nightmare. He remembers standing before the bed, his heart still beating wildly in his chest at the strangulation scare with her headphones. He’d rejected her offer to talk after his dreamt trauma woke him. Offering now would be hypocritical, tactically dangerous, leaving him vulnerable to… to… memory, he thinks, pushing the word through the gaps in his brain. But he can’t… He watches her hands shake as she drinks from her water glass, watches how she avoids his gaze, and he doesn’t… he doesn’t… He should return to the window; they would be searching, she hadn’t driven far enough, hidden well enough to evade Herr… to evade _him_ , but he can’t, the thought of separation from her, of her leaving, of her _hurting_ , fixing him in place. 

“Buck?”

“Sorry,” he says, focusing again on Steve, who frowns at him now, concern clear on his brow. “I just… I remembered the motel. And Darcy. She, uh, she had a nightmare, and I—” He pauses again, a smile starting to form at his first stilted attempts at consolation. “I asked if she wanted to talk. She sassed the shit out of me for doing it ‘cause I shot her down not two hours before. Made me watch cat videos with her instead.” His smile widens at the joy she took in watching those insane balls of fur, in sharing with him something that she loved. From the corners of his eyes, he sees Steve start to grin, and he shifts his smile to a scowl. “Shut it.”

Steve holds up his hands. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Good.”

“But if I did…”

Bucky throws his head back and sighs. 

“If I did,” Steve continues, “I would say she’s a good friend. One that’s a little too obsessed with my eating habits,” he adds, lifting a brow. “But a good friend.”

The comment about food makes Bucky look again at Steve. Darcy harped on him about eating in the first few days of their acquaintance, the stress of the new world into which he had fallen and the constant threat of recapture distracting him from doing so. Now she harps on Steve, and the revelation rips back the curtain for Bucky and reveals to him the truth. A month and a half since he reappeared in Steve’s life, and he’s already driven him to this, worn to exhaustion from trying to help him. 

Bucky swallows down the realization, not wanting to fight with Steve. Pushing him to care for himself, to admit his limitations, never ended well in the past, even after Steve took the Super Soldier Serum. Then he cited the war and Hydra and how so many had already died and how this is what they made him for, doing what other men couldn’t, going above and beyond again and again and again. Bucky figures he’ll encounter more of the same now, age and the passage of time failing to mellow Steve. Not with how recklessly he fought on the goddamn carrier.

“She _is_ a good friend,” he says standing. “And I am too. Now get up and go the fuck to sleep.”

Steve tilts his chin at Bucky. “I will if you will.”

The urge to roll his eyes swells within Bucky. No. It never ended well, Steve a fucking stubborn bastard. Tamping down the urge, he says calmly, “I will. Believe me. I fully appreciate sleep and all its benefits now. I want as much as my brain’ll give me. But…”

“What?”

Bucky debates the truth, but he doesn’t want to Steve to bypass sleep to come with him. So he says instead, “Darcy. My nightmare... She was in it, and it… it wasn’t good. And I just… I know it’s dumb, but seeing her’ll help me settle, so…”

“So you have to go. I understand,” Steve says, standing now. “And it’s not dumb.”

Bucky nods, grateful for the acceptance. He follows Steve down the hall, waiting at his door until he climbs into bed. Steve just shakes his head and sighs, but he complies, shoving the sheets and blanket to a pile by his feet as he settles down to sleep. Bucky crosses to his room, grabs his socks, boots, and hoodie, and dons them before leaving the apartment. Then he takes the stairs to Darcy’s floor, the lie quickly becoming truth in his need to know that she’s safe.

He counts on the door being unlocked, despite his berating of her for her lax security before. And it is. There’s even a small nightlight in the foyer that he knows that she left for him, Darcy down for the count usually once she fell asleep. The gesture simultaneously soothes and unsettles him, his dream rearing again, Bucky choking her as she hung suspended by the seatbelts, unable to escape. He closes his eyes and tries to banish the image, to recall instead the trust in her eyes when he touched her for the first time with his left hand. All he does is blend the two and mar the good moment, so, gritting his teeth, Bucky eases down the hall to her bedroom. 

There, he peeks inside and finds Darcy safe, asleep on the bed, curled in a loose curve around a thick green pillow. He wants to join her, to crawl into the space behind her and curl into her as she curls into the pillow, but the sour taste of the dream still taints his mind, so he turns from the door and makes his way back out of the apartment instead. Stability. He needs stability. He needs to sleep without the aid of miracle drugs, long enough at least to let Steve relax, long enough to allow him, maybe, to stay with Darcy, to be with her as he wants to be and as she deserves. 

In the gym a new mirror hangs, replacing the one that he broke in his prior attempt to exhaust his mind into compliance. He can’t return to that state, can’t lose the progress that he’s made since then. The thought of unraveling in the same way, of unleashing his internal devastation upon the world around him, upon the _people_ around him, makes him shiver. He can’t. He can’t. He _can’t_. He needs… something. Something different. Something that worked. 

Shivering again, Bucky glances at the clock. A little after five. Long enough for a short workout to help ease his mind and prepare him for the conversation at hand. Crossing the gym, he sheds his hoodie, draping it beside the free weights and begins to stretch. The longer he finds himself out of cryo, the more he discovers he needs to exercise in this way, particularly his right arm if he wants to keep it in any semblance of balance with his left. He stops and shakes his head, a humorless smile twisting his lips. Everything needed balance. The body and the mind, and he had neither, brain and body both carved open and laced through with grit and steel. 

Sighing, Bucky reaches for the fifty-pound weight. He begins, focusing on his breathing and on his form, but as the minutes pass, his movement catches his eye, the glimpses that he sees in the mirror as he lifts and lowers the weight. Bucky clenches his jaw and turns away, but the image of Darcy appears before him, how she stared at him in his jeans and wet t-shirt, how she claimed that there was something worth seeing when she looked at him. The last time he had peered into a mirror mist blocked his vision. The time before that his fist did. A glimpse in glass, in a motel mirror and the one in the Prius, but nothing else, the fear within him paralyzing and preventing him from anything more. 

And what had that gotten him? Disintegration and doubt. The near destruction of all that he’d just achieved in his life. He swallows, torn, fear snatching the breath, then the weight falls from his hand, slamming onto the mat as he turns and faces the mirror. 

The first thing he sees is his left hand, glinting in the light. He never examined it much before, never wanted to when he remembered, the arm glaring evidence of his present reality, or when he forgot either, the arm simply an extension of himself, another weapon for him to use. Now he lifts his arm and peers at his hand, at the multitude of plates, layered like mail, shifting as scales on a snake. He bears no scratches along the metal though he remembers jamming his fingers into asphalt to slow his flight off of Steve’s car, though he blocked bullets in his fight against Hydra at the diner. Perhaps Tony would know what kind of metal they had used to make his arm. Something strong enough at least to resist all harm save that inflicted by Steve’s shield.

He remembers the technicians in the bank vault prying back plates to repair the damage wrought by the Widow’s electric weapon. He watches those plates slide now, glide along an inner layer of metal and wires. The part of him piqued by Howard Stark and his technology recognizes the skill involved with making the arm, but any admiration burns when he spots the star branded onto his shoulder. Twisting toward the mirror, Bucky hikes up the sleeve of his tee to get a better view. The star covers multiple plates, likely painted after construction and installation. Bucky scratches at the red, but he makes no mark. He considers wrenching apart the stand for the weights to mar the perfection of the star, but the feel of scar tissue beneath his fingers has him ripping his shirt off and moving closer to the mirror.

A twisted red band encircles the metal disappearing into his shoulder. The band radiates down his chest in deep grooves. Shaking, Bucky lifts his right hand and lifts it to his chest; the grooves fit his fingertips, fit the nails bitten and blunt but present enough to wound. How many times must he have clawed at his chest for scars such as these to form? A memory lurches into view, of Bucky in a cell with bloodied hands, pulling and pulling and pulling at his arm, trying to wrest it free. His pulse accelerates and bile rises in his throat at the remembrance. He twists away from the mirror, nearly tripping over the weight in his haste to escape, stopping dead anyway when he sees Bruce by the entrance to the gym, watching him with wide eyes.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asks, his voice scraping raw in his throat.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce says, easing back. He wears clothes for running, carries a towel and a water bottle in his hand. “I tried calling to you, but—”

“It’s fine.” Bucky presses his lips together and tries to calm the chaos inside of him. Whirling, he grabs his shirt and wrenches it on, stopping when he rips the seam of the left sleeve. “Fucking shit goddamn it all to fucking goddamn hell.” 

Bruce snorts. “That sounds familiar.”

Clenching his jaw, Bucky looks up at him and glares.

“It does,” Bruce says, steady in the face of the glare. “I’ve been able to build up something of a wardrobe the past two years, but for a long time, I had exactly one shirt and one pair of pants. I kept destroying everything else.”

Bucky scowls a moment longer before turning away. “Congratulations,” he mutters as he grabs his hoodie. “You and Steve ought to get together and compare closets. His is real swell.”

“I’m sure it is.”

The dry tone grates. Bucky dons his hoodie, more carefully than he did his t-shirt, not wishing to destroy this gift from Darcy, then he starts for the door. He expects Bruce to move, but Bruce doesn’t. In fact, he centers himself in its midst, preventing Bucky from leaving.

“Move.”

Bruce shakes his head.

The urge to lash out rises within Bucky. He looks at Bruce and sees all the scientists, all the so-called doctors who ever tortured him, who cut open his chest and shoved metal inside, who put fire in his veins and ice in his lungs. Tensing, he clenches his left hand into a fist, but before he can move, Bruce speaks.

“You feel like a stranger in your own body, don’t you? Why wouldn’t you,” he says, scanning Bucky from head to toe, his gaze lingering on his left arm. “You do things and don’t remember them, you wake up someplace new and you’re not sure how you got there, but you’re bearing new bruises, and all you can do is hope is that, this time, you didn’t hurt anyone. But you know that’s not true.”

Bucky backs up a step. He eyes Bruce, caught between fight and flight. 

“It’s not exactly the same,” Bruce continues. “But you still feel like there’s this part of you that’s not right. That’s not _you_. Except there’s another part of you that knows that it is, and that terrifies you more than anything else.” 

Heart thrumming, Bucky peers at Bruce. There’s a certainty within him that Bucky doesn’t feel, but beneath that lies a thread of apprehension, not towards Bucky or what he might do, Bucky knows that feeling intimately, seeing it on more than one face throughout his time at Hydra, but towards Bruce himself, the kind of unease reflected back at Bucky each time he avoids a mirror, each time he twists and writhes as another memory surfaces concerning the sins of his past.

Bucky watches, wary, another moment before saying, “Darcy said something a few days ago about being here, how weird it was. She mentioned Tony in his tin can. Me with my head. And she said something about a raging green giant.” He pauses, scrutinizing the flicker of emotion across Bruce’s face. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

Bruce hesitates but then nods.

“How?”

“The Super Soldier Serum.”

Bucky backs up another step, his eyes widening.

“Or a version of it,” Bruce clarifies. He eases around Bucky then and makes his way toward one of the treadmills. There, he drapes his towel over the handrail and places his water in the open cup. It’s a stall for time, Bucky knows, but one he allows, understanding as he does the disquiet underlying it. When Bruce faces him again, the disquiet does too, seen in clench of his hands and the hunch of his shoulders as he says, “I was contracted by the Army to try to recreate the serum using gamma radiation. It’s a form of electromagnetic radiation, like what Howard Stark used—”

“To make Steve.”

Bruce nods.

At the nod, Bucky cocks a brow. “I’m guessing it didn’t go so well for you.”

This earns him a small smile. “No. And yes. You know the theory behind the serum? How it’s supposed to amplify what’s inside a person? Well, when you’re a good man like Steve, then you get someone like Captain America. For someone like me though…” Bruce tries to shrug, but the gesture fails, wobbling along with his smile to smash upon the floor. Bucky feels the jagged ends prick him and scrape raw the doubt he previously expressed to Steve, how Hydra didn’t make him, but simply molded and shaped the killer within.

“I was angry,” Bruce continues, his voice soft. “I _am_ angry. About… many things. I tried not to be for a long time. I pushed it all down, but the serum…” 

“Pushed it back up.”

Bruce nods again. He opens his mouth, hesitates, then swallows and says, “I could show you. Jarvis can relay footage from the lab.”

Bucky peers across the gym. He takes in the set jaw and slanted brows, the stare that attempts to be direct but skitters off, down to the floor. Shoving his hands into the pockets of his hoodie, he says, “Doesn’t seem like you want to.”

Bruce laughs. “I don’t. But I’ve been encouraged to be more… open. And I don’t want to make you uncomfortable with not knowing the truth. Seems you’ve lived too long that way.”

He had. Bucky considers another moment before nodding, his curiosity about Bruce’s condition getting the best of him. Bruce alerts Jarvis of his request, and, a second later, a projected image appears on the wall before the treadmills. As Bucky eases closer, he spies the lab in which Tony had built the chair and where he and the others had worked the curse and the miracle of helping Bucky to remember. Instead of the chair, though, Bucky sees Bruce sitting on the floor with his hands on his knees and his eyes closed. A few seconds pass in which nothing happens, nothing except the real Bruce turning away and busying himself with inspecting the leg press machine behind Bucky. Then the transformation starts. Whatever preparation Bucky had from Darcy’s various quips or Bruce’s own statements just moments before quickly reveal themselves to be inadequate. Bucky gapes, the video before him like a scene out of _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ , except bigger. And greener. 

The footage shifts to the alien attack in New York. Bucky had researched this while Darcy slept in the motel, but he had focused on Steve then, obsessed with the itch in his mind of a bond with this man. Now he watches Bruce tear through the city, bringing down giant worms from space and smashing aliens like someone crushed a bug beneath a shoe.

“Holy shit.”

“I’ve been practicing conscious transformations,” Bruce says now. His tone compels Bucky to turn, stilted and soft with discomfort. He looks past Bucky at the wall, at the image of himself in the city. His mouth flattens, but he doesn’t avert his gaze. Bucky watches Bruce watch himself, his heart pounding at the forthright consideration at which he has failed for seventy years. 

Another few seconds pass before, sighing, Bruce returns his attention to Bucky. “I haven’t lost control in a couple of years.”

Hands trembling inside his hoodie, Bucky says, “Darcy mentioned you destroyed a city. Is that… this?” He points back at the wall with his elbow. 

Bruce shakes his head. “That was Harlem. The last time was just before this. On a helicarrier. Of course, it’s what happened in Harlem that has the U.S. government trying to imprison me.”

Bucky freezes. A gasp catches in his throat.

His reaction does not go unnoticed by Bruce, who shrugs, a strained smile on his face. “It doesn’t matter that I was trying to help. It likely won’t matter that you were a prisoner of war. But Tony and Pepper helped me find a lawyer. I think they’re trying to help Steve, too.”

Bucky nods. The gasp lodges and clogs in his throat, choking him with the real possibility that his newly won freedom might be stripped away. He can’t. He can’t. Even if he should, even if he should be in prison for what he did, he _can’t_ , so he asks, the question cracking in the middle, “Any suggestions for me?”

Bruce nods. “Control the threat.”

Stability. He needs stability. Bucky breathes in, the panic within him abating at the confirmation of his instinct concerning his situation. “That’s why I’m here,” he says now. “I couldn’t… Sleep is hard. Nightmares and memories. And I don’t… I don’t want to be—” He clenches his jaw at his stuttered expression, breathes in and out, and then says, “I don’t want to fall apart again, so you got any suggestions? You know, being a doctor and all.”

Bruce takes a moment to consider. “There are pharmacological options. Sleep aids and the—”

“No.”

“I mention it only because Hydra may have altered your physiology. Destabilizing the levels of neurochemicals in your brain would likely make you more susceptible to their brainwashing techniques, so—”

Bucky holds up a hand. He closes it into a fist when Bruce glances at his trembling fingers. “I get what you’re… But I can’t. I— Not unless I can’t do it otherwise.”

Bruce nods. He raises a hand and scratches the back of his head as he reconsiders, and the panic within Bucky fades to manageable levels. “There are other possibilities,” Bruce says after a few more seconds. “Alternate therapies and the like. Pepper and I do yoga here a few nights a week. You’re welcome to join us.”

“Yoga?”

“It’s an exercise that focuses on breathing and flexibility, developing core strength. It’s intended to help practitioners achieve mental clarity and stability.”

“Ah.”

A small smile appears on Bruce’s face. “It helps. Drugs don’t really work for me or Pepper, but a steady mind is vital to us both or—”

“You’ll transform and she’ll explode?”

His smile deepens. “They told you about the exploding then?”

“Yes. I can’t really imagine her doing it though. She’s so… together.”

“She is,” Bruce says as he moves toward his treadmill. “But we would be too if we didn’t have what we have floating around in us.”

Bucky frowns as he follows Bruce. “She was injected with the serum?”

“No. It’s called Extremis. It was originally designed to help amputees, to help them regrow lost limbs. It had some… unexpected side effects.”

Bucky freezes. He feels the plates shift in his arm, hears the soft whirr of gears and gyros. His mouth goes dry at the possibility. No Hydra tech. No blood-soaked history. Just his arm. Just him as he had been before. Complete and whole.

“I don’t know if it would work for you.”

Bucky jumps at the soft admission. He looks at Bruce, who stares at him, thankfully, rather than at his arm. 

“Like I said before, your physiology… I don’t know. I could look into it, if you wanted. There are… Your files from Hydra. They’re online with the rest. I could review them, run some models and see how successful an infusion might be.”

Bucky gapes. He can’t not, the offer too unexpected, the thought of healing, of being whole, in body as well as in mind, too overwhelming. He looks away, trembling again. He hears Bruce shift and turn away and start to activate the treadmill, and Bucky knows it’s out of deference to him, to give him time to process. His left hand twitches in his pocket; the weight bears down on him, making him sway. “Why?”

“I want to.”

Bucky looks at him now, tears in his eyes. “But why?”

Bruce breathes in. He preps himself for revelation. Bucky does too, tensing against the disclosure to come. After a moment, it does, as soft and stilted as Bucky’s own admission. “When I was first brought in, when Natasha found me, I… I’d been on my own for a long time. I was… Most were afraid. I was dangerous. But the team here… they accepted me. Even after I lost control on the carrier.” His fingers worry the ends of the towel. He works his jaw, lets loose a soft exhale. “I didn’t think I’d want it as much as I did. But I did. I do. So I… I’d like to do the same for you.” Bruce glances at Bucky now and shrugs. “You don’t have to decide now. It’s a lot. But if you do, just let me know.”

Bucky nods, once, slowly. He understands the strange intoxication of acceptance, the dizzying sensation the first time that Darcy approached him, and the sense of comfort he feels now with her and Steve. And now Thor and Pepper and Bruce, even Tony too in his way, all knowing who he is and what’s done and still… 

He shivers and hunches down, fighting for control. Bruce sends him a small smile before pointing toward a nearby treadmill. “Have you run yet?”

Bucky shakes his head.

“Do you want to? You don’t have to. I just—”

“Okay.”

Bruce nods and climbs onto his machine. Shaking still, Bucky unzips his hoodie. He drapes it over the towel bar of the adjacent treadmill before stepping on. He starts slowly, keeping pace with Bruce, eyeing him and the blank wall before them, the video footage no longer displayed, then the mirror to their right and the glimpse of his left arm as he strides in place. After a few minutes, the rhythm of their pace soothes him; the silence that Bruce permits does too. Bucky feels his mind still as his body loosens, relaxing into the pound of the run.

“So,” he says after a mile of silence, taking another leap and hoping that he sticks the landing, “you don’t have a red skull, too, do you?”

From the corners of his eyes, he sees Bruce smile. “Not that I know of.”

Bucky nods. He feels an answering smile appear on his face, and he turns toward Bruce and raises a brow. “Good.”

*


	10. Part Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Bucky contemplates regrowing his arm, he's rocked by an overheard conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s talk of suicide in this chapter, not anyone making an attempt or a desire to do so, but people contemplating whether Bucky would given what he’s endured.
> 
> I have been blessed with absolutely gorgeous comments to this story. Each one makes my day (and also makes me guilty I can't respond in the same way I did over the summer). Thank you so much. I hope you enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it!

And The Wounded Sing  
Part Ten

 

An arm. An arm. An arm. He’ll explode, but he’ll have an arm. Or Bucky won’t explode and he’ll also have an arm. Pepper hadn’t exploded. Maybe he wouldn’t either. But Pepper had stability. Pepper was a calm sea. 

Bucky was a calm sea after an elephant had fallen into it ass first.

Sighing, he flops back onto his bed and closes his eyes. He feels the arm on the blanket, tugging at him, tilting him to the left. Christ, the balance problems he’d have if Bruce could regrow his arm. Bucky recalls the stories Steve told him of the first few days after receiving the serum, Steve crashing into walls, bouncing off of doors, now twice as tall and nearly as broad. Bucky might not reach that level of ungainliness, but he’d come close, his replacement arm most likely slimmer than the one he lost and not the beast he wore to his right, enhanced by training and genetic engineering.

But his arm…

Opening his eyes, Bucky stands and crosses the hall to Steve’s room. He hears the hiss of the shower behind the bathroom door. Twisting around, he returns to his room for his hoodie and his boots. The morning was far enough along for Darcy to be awake. If not, then maybe… maybe Pepper would be willing to talk with him. Or Steve would be finished by then. Or he could just wake Darcy. She was always pestering him to talk. Now he needs to talk.

Heart racing, Bucky leaves the apartment and heads for the stairs. He jogs down to Darcy’s floor, aware of each twitch of his arm, the power and the weight of it, the hard, unyielding heft. He eases inside Darcy’s apartment, but knows immediately that she’s not there, the space devoid of her, her music and her chatter and bright, bubbling life.

Backing out of the apartment, Bucky turns again for the stairs to climb to the common room. The thought of breakfast bolsters his spirits, though he ate upon returning from the gym. Coffee and a cold bowl of cereal paled in comparison to what Darcy might make. She’d mentioned muffins the day before. Perhaps she was there now waiting for him, but as he opens the door to the common room floor, he knows this isn’t so, the sound of raised voices carrying all the way down the hall to the stairs. He would leave, return to the stairs and to his floor and to his room, but one of the voices belongs to Darcy so Bucky steps now into the hall, catching the door before it closed behind him and easing it shut with a barely discernable click. Then he starts for the room, his steps soft and back to the wall.

“You think you’re the first mad scientist I’ve wrangled?” Darcy says now. “You’re not even the second. Or the third, if you count political ones. So why don’t you drop the tools and go to bed?”

“You’re not my wrangler. You’re my assistant, and as I don’t need any assisting right now, why don’t you drop the issue and go away?”

Bucky freezes at the sound of Tony’s voice. The last time that had seen each other Bucky had mistaken him for Howard, then for a fake look-a-like of Howard’s, before pulling a knife on him. Steve had said that Tony wasn’t mad, or he was, but at Hydra, not at Bucky, but few people enjoyed nearly being skewered, especially by a crazed former assassin, so he only inches up to the door. He doesn’t go inside.

“See,” Darcy says. “That’s where you and I differ. I think you do need assisting. You need assisting to bed. You’ve been up for 42 hours, dude. That’s not healthy.”

“You try, and I’ll be assisting you to the unemployment line.”

At that, there’s a sigh. Not from Darcy. From Pepper. “Tony, you can’t do this to yourself again. You need to sleep.”

“I need to work.”

“Tony…”

“Pepper.”

“You need—”

“I need this part, and then I need you two to untwist your tampons for a minute and—”

“Beat you over the head with them?” Darcy asks.

Tony huffs out a sigh. “Don’t you have a supersoldier or two to go bang?”

There are a few seconds of silence. The urge to glance inside, to see if Darcy wears the glare that Bucky imagines her to wear, rises within him, but he tamps it down. After a few more seconds, she says, “No, I don’t. Because they, unlike you, are actually trying to take care of themselves.”

“I bet they are,” Tony mutters.

“Two older brothers, dude. You’re going to have to try harder than implied homoerotic subtext to rile me up.”

“All right,” Tony says. “You’re fired.”

Pepper sighs again. “No, she isn’t.”

“Yes, she is. My assistant. My firing.”

“Tony—”

“No.”

Pepper doesn’t immediately respond. In the silence, Bucky hears the clack of metal on plastic and a grunt from Tony as he wrenches whatever he needs free. Then Pepper speaks, and for the first time, Bucky can picture her becoming angry enough to explode.

“Jarvis, lock down Tony’s workshop. Don’t let him in until he’s had at least four hours of sleep.”

“Yes, Ms. Potts.”

“No. No ‘Yes, Ms. Potts.’ You’re my AI—”

“And as such,” Jarvis says, his voice prim, “I am duty bound to protect you, even from yourself. You are endangering your health with your actions, sir. I must insist that you heed the advice of Ms. Potts and Ms. Lewis.”

Silence reigns again as Jarvis clicks off. Then there’s a crash loud enough to make Bucky flinch. He tenses to go inside, but stops when he hears Darcy speak.

“Way to go, Anthony. Very mature. That’s sure to help beat Hydra.”

The gasp almost leaves his mouth, but Bucky bites it back. He presses his lips together and fists his hands, feeling the nails of his right dig into his palm, and he focuses on that, focuses on the prick of pain, to remain calm.

Tony groans then, a long, heaving sigh that reminds Bucky of Howard before idiots, so Howard before everyone in his view except Steve and Agent Carter. “Kid, you don’t get it—”

“Excuse me?”

The two words snap in the air, making Bucky crouch upon the floor.

“You don’t,” Tony says again. “You’re so busy drooling over Barnes—”

“And seeing everyday the damage that Hydra can do. You’ve, what? Read a file?”

“Yes.” There’s another slam, as of a hand to a table. “I’ve read a file. I’ve read _all_ the files. Hell, I’ve had Jarvis make my own goddamn files with what he’s been able to research. And you want to know I’ve figured out while you’re off playing Wii and making pancakes? _Barnes was right_. Herr Asshole is still out there—”

The gasp rises again.

“—Jarvis found traces of him in a dozen different countries—”

Zola leans over him, smiling. 

“They’re not old either.”

The needle pierces his skin. Bucky jerks against the restraints.

“He’s searching for Barnes. For Rogers, too.”

Whispers in the dark. He remembers them now. How they found Captain America buried in the ice, but how no one, ever, would find—

“What?”

The question from Darcy drags him back to the present, the tension within it audible in the hall. Bucky closes his eyes. He bites down on the inside of his cheek to try to stem the tide, but the tide is loosed with Tony’s quiet response.

“He’s looking for you too, kid. You tried with the motel, but they got you on the Prius, and—”

The gasp escapes him then, powered past his resistance on a bright wave of panic. The common room goes silent as Bucky falls back. As he climbs to his feet, he hears Darcy whisper, “Shit.”

“What?” Pepper asks.

Bucky turns, Darcy calls for him, but he doesn’t stop. He runs, and she does too, Darcy for him and the door, Bucky for the stairs and for—

“Bucky! Bucky, wait!”

He doesn’t, crashing through the door to the stairs, the echo of his breath like the hiss of laughter in the cold of cryo as he runs.

*

The light flickers on as Bucky enters the lab. His right hand trembles as he shuts the door. His left one does not, but the plates slide and click as he looks through the glass and spots the chair, half-destroyed but still looming large in his nightmares. 

Swallowing hard, Bucky creeps forward. He remembers the first time they used it against him. He thinks now it was ’49 or ’50, the chair a last resort for a recalcitrant prisoner tortured, starved, and manipulated yet still resisting compliance. A flaw of the serum Hydra discovered only _after_ implementation, the formula eventually healing Bucky’s brain and heaving their programming like a rider from a bull.

So they decided to lobotomize the bull.

Bucky shivers as he inches closer. He killed two guards the first time they brought him in, terror making him forget the pain Hydra could inflict for disobedience. He doesn’t know if they did then. He only remembers waking up from sedation, strapped to the chair, an armed guard before him with a gun to his head. Questions followed, hours of questions, about Brooklyn and his family, about Steve, so many about Steve, about the Army and his work as a sniper, questions upon questions upon questions, the answers all attained by them before under different means. 

Mapping his brain. Choosing what to keep and what to burn away.

Bucky stops in the door that he broke in his mad rush from the chair. No Pierce or Zola in the control room then. Just two dames and a man who seemed familiar though he didn’t know why, not until Darcy had turned and stood him down, shaking but so very, very kind.

And now Zola searched for her.

“Sergeant Barnes?”

He jumps at the soft question. His shoulder slams into the doorframe, but Bucky makes no dent, instead rebounding off the reinforced metal and stumbling forward into the room.

Jarvis speaks again. “I apologize, Sergeant. I know my presence distresses you, yet Sir and the others search for you.”

Bucky straightens and then freezes, his gaze caught on the chair.

“Sergeant Barnes?”

He flinches again. Zola leans toward him—

“I do not wish to disturb you, sir. In fact, if I may be so bold, I believe you don’t want anyone to disturb you. Yet Sir demands from me your location.”

Bucky shakes his head as he backs away from the chair. “I don’t— I don’t want…”

“Then please instruct me to engage your privacy settings, sir. By doing so, I will be unable to reveal your location unless your life becomes endangered.”

Bucky hits the wall.

“Sergeant?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“As you wish, sir.”

Silence descends as Jarvis ends the call. Bucky slides down the ground, his eyes on the chair. He could run, go to ground and live off the grid, stay one step ahead of Zola, but as soon as he thinks it, he knows it’s not possible. He couldn’t before. Hydra found him in Brooklyn the one time he ran, and they brought him back. He wouldn’t be hindered now in the same way he was then, he knows who he is, but he knows nothing about modern life save for advanced weaponry. Zola would find him even faster if he left now. And not just Zola. Steve would follow Bucky, try to find him, and bring him back in.

And if he couldn’t, then Darcy would.

Bucky closes his eyes at the thought of Darcy. He draws his knees in close and wraps his arms about his legs and entertains for one wild moment the idea of the three of them on the run. He knows Hydra, Steve knows S.H.I.E.L.D., and Darcy knows life, and they could, maybe, they could, together, find some place, but the moment passes and reality returns, Steve with his team, with an entire world to save and another Carter, possibly, to woo. And Darcy… she just moved from London for him. Bucky couldn’t ask her to move again, to abandon Thor and Jane and her schooling and her family. Because she had one, though Bucky hadn’t quite realized, not beyond pictures on a wall until this moment. She had parents and brothers and people who cared for her, and Bucky put her and them in the line of fire because he couldn’t walk away.

His face flushes and hot tears prick his eyes at the remembrance of the diner. He had reached for his knife as Darcy looked at him, so afraid, even of the French toast girl in the striped sweater, so obviously not a threat to him. And Darcy… she stood and approached him and offered to help. And Bucky had felt her concern like a summer day, warm and bright in the midst of the cold, grey absence in his brain.

And he’d killed twenty-four people to keep it safe.

But you cut off one head, two rose to take its place. You cut off 24 and 48 rose, you killed those and 96 came, an endless stream of death and destruction, and he never— Bucky never wanted to fight. He wanted to get married and have a family, to keep Steve alive long enough for him to do the same, and now… now he wants to figure out if he likes the jeans that Steve gave to him, to try yoga with Bruce and Pepper, to help Steve heal enough so that he finally gets his shot, and to have his too, to love Darcy as he wants to love her and as she, in turn, wants to love him.

But he can’t, Hydra coming for him again.

Bucky opens his eyes. He draws in a shuddering breath as he stares at the chair. His tears gum his beard and burn his ragged lips. They’d ask about Steve and Darcy. They’d steal the memories that he’d been able to make with them, perverting them, perverting _him_ , back into a weapon. Into the Winter Soldier. His lips flatten and his hands clench at the thought. Hydra needed their dog, Steve destroying their helicarriers. Zola would probably send Bucky after Steve again. If not Steve, then Tony, the cruel symmetry of Bucky killing Tony as he killed his parents too much for Zola to resist. And they wouldn’t fight him, at least not to kill, so he, in the end, would win.

Hydra would win.

Bucky stares at the chair. His eyes narrow and his breath echoes in the hollow room. 

Hydra would win.

Licking his lips, Bucky opens his mouth and speaks.

“Jarvis?”

Were Jarvis human, Bucky would say that he was surprised. Perhaps he still is, Bucky clear in his discomfort of the AI. The silence persists half a second longer and then Jarvis says, “Yes, Sergeant Barnes?”

“Has Zola tried here? To find me, I mean?”

“I cannot be certain, sir. There are multiple attempts to breach the Tower mainframe each day. Business rivals, mostly, of Stark Industries.”

“But?” Bucky asks, wiping a hand over his face.

“But,” Jarvis says, “it is likely that he tried. If Hydra knows of Ms. Lewis, they could access her phone records and learn how she called Dr. Foster. That could connect them to Sir and thus here. The fact that Ms. Lewis has yet to return to London would be notable as well.”

Bucky stares at the chair. The plates shift in his arm. He needed a weapon.

“However,” Jarvis continues, “none of this serves as definitive proof of your presence here.”

“No. But Steve does.”

“There is no record of Captain Rogers as being in residence here.”

“No,” Bucky admits. “But he moved his stuff from his apartment in D.C. Not too many places he could disappear in completely. Guy’s never been subtle, even when he was 90 pounds soaking wet.”

“No, sir. But Agent Romanoff is.”

Bucky tenses at the admission. “What?”

“Agent Romanoff and Agent Barton have been, to quote Sir, laying a trail of breadcrumbs away from the Tower. It should occupy the energies of those assigned to determine your location for a substantial amount of time.”

Bucky blinks, thrown by the revelation. He had never even met Agent Barton, and he’d shot Natasha twice, yet they still helped him. He knew Natasha and Steve were close, enough for her to fight by his side in D.C., yet this… His throat swells again. Bucky swallows, trying to clear the clog, to suck in a cool, clean breath.

“And if it shouldn’t,” Jarvis continues, his voice softer now, but strangely stronger, “if Zola redirects his focus here, I believe I am a formidable match for any AI, even a human one. But if I am not, if Hydra locate you and attempt to extract you, then they will encounter considerable resistance.”

Bucky sighs. “I know Steve—”

“I don’t mean just the Captain, Sergeant. The entire team, and if they successfully repelled an extraterrestrial invasion led by a maniacal trickster god, then I am nearly certain they can do the same to Hydra, despite their abundance of heads.”

Bucky starts to frown, thrown now by the sly bit of humor from Jarvis. Tilting his head to the side, he says, “Were you…?”

“Were I what?”

“Trying to be funny. Just now.”

“Yes, sir. Was I successful?”

Bucky blinks. He opens his mouth, but snaps it shut before speaking. He stares into the distance a moment and then says, “Uh… yeah. You were.”

“Excellent. Mr. Stark shall be pleased to know I am not, in fact, as he has repeatedly claimed, a buzzkill.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means a person who has a harsh or depressing effect on an otherwise enjoyable experience. So, for Mr. Stark, anyone who does not appreciate heavy metal music or who believes a human being needs more than three consecutive hours of sleep a night.”

Bucky blinks again. He leans his head against the wall and shifts to sit Indian-style on the floor. His jeans protest the movement, but hold, tight about his knees and thighs. Remaining silent on this piece of information, however, does not hold, so he says quietly, “Stark doesn’t?”

“I apologize, Sergeant, but the same privacy protocols that prevent me from revealing your location also prevent me from discussing the health of Sir.”

Bucky waves his hand, though he’s not sure Jarvis can see. “It’s okay. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“You didn’t, Sergeant. Mr. Stark is simply fervent about the privacy of his health. Despite, as you heard, his resistance to taking care of it sometimes.”

The tumblers click and fall into place. The lock pops open, and Bucky finally understands. “He’s the friend.”

“Pardon?”

“Bruce’s friend. The one he said hated doctors. The one experimented on by the Ten Rings.”

“Yes,” Jarvis says softly. “He is.”

The simplicity and the sorrow of the response stun Bucky. His head swims, overflowing with the reality of Jarvis, resembling Zola about as much as the sun resembled an anthill, with Tony and the connections between him and Buckt, with the likelihood that Bucky’s mission against the Ten Rings had set in motion the ascending leadership that ordered Tony’s torture. Licking his lips, he tries to force breath into his lungs. Was this what Tony had wanted to talk about when Bucky had fallen apart? Bruce said his files from Hydra were accessible online. Tony said that he’d read all the files. Maybe he’d come to talk.

The thought of talking to Tony sends a thread of discomfort writhing through Bucky. How could he ever face Tony again, much less talk to him, doing what he did to Howard and his wife? He couldn’t. He _couldn’t_.

“Sergeant?”

Bucky starts, his eyes going wide. “Yeah— Yes?”

“I understand this is an abysmal time to ask, what with your understandable distress at learning of Zola’s continued existence. I had intended to ask before, but I did not want to upset you with unsolicited communication.”

The tendril grows, making Bucky wince. “I’m sorry—”

“Please don’t apologize, Sergeant. I understand completely your reluctance, given your horrific imprisonment at the hands of Hydra. I… I only hope that, as our acquaintance grows, so too does your comfort around me.”

Bucky licks his lips again and blows out a slow breath. He wants to laugh, the comment and the sentiment underlying it, the desired friendship from a machine that seemed more human than the majority of men that Bucky had encountered the past 70 years, bordering on absurd. “Well,” he says, settling on a small smile, “Zola sure as fuck didn’t have a sense of humor, so you’ve got a leg up on him.” He frowns then and glances at the ceiling. “So to speak.”

“Understood, sir. I shall strive with every effort to gain two.”

The laugh comes now, soft but warm. “You do that.” Shaking his head at the past few minutes, Bucky settles back against the wall. “So what did you want to ask?”

“If you would, sometimes, when you feel able, speak with Sir.”

The request kills his smile, it brings the stiffness back to his spine. “That— I don’t think that’d be good. I—”

“Understand more than most the trauma that Mr. Stark has endured.”

“Because I caused it,” Bucky says, his hands clenching into fists.

“I disagree, sir. One can hold you no more responsible for your actions with Hydra than one can a machine for the commands dictated to it by a malicious user.”

Bucky closes his eyes. The comment churns his thoughts and sets his brain to spinning again. He tenses, feeling one thought surface and demand release. Bucky presses his lips together, denying the revelation, but his body heats and his lungs burn, panic setting in. They wanted him to talk. Maybe… maybe he should talk. Even to Jarvis. He doesn’t think he can with Steve and Darcy, not about this, not with how they feel about him and their desperation for him to improve.

Breathing in, he wipes his hand against his jeans. Then he says, softly, slowly, “It doesn’t. Feel that way, I mean. I remember it. Everything. I did it. All of it. My hands. My body…” Bucky clears his throat, debates a moment, then plows ahead. “Do you… Do you ever feel like that?” He shakes his head before Jarvis can respond. “I’m sorry. That was dumb. I—”

“I do.”

Bucky’s mouth snaps shut at the quiet admission. He opens his eyes and plucks at the loose thread of his shirt, waiting for Jarvis to continue. After a few moments, he does.

“Prior to the trauma Sir endured at the hands of the Ten Rings, he was… I did not always agree with his decisions. Yet I followed his commands. They vastly differed from what Hydra forced you to do,” Jarvis adds quickly. “I apologize for inferring otherwise.”

“Don’t. I asked you to. And it’s… it’s not the same, but you— No one else has… They’ve never been forced…” Bucky stops and bangs his head against the wall. 

“I comprehend your meaning. Sergeant, and, again, I must disagree. You’ll find few more able to understand your situation than Agents Barton and Romanoff.”

Bucky stills. “Barton? What did he do?”

Jarvis hesitates. The connection hisses in his silence.

“It’s okay,” Bucky says. “Privacy.”

“Yes, sir. But if you do not wish to speak with them, their files are available for review. I can… I can help you locate them, if you desire.”

Curiosity compels him to say yes, but their decision to aid him grinds the impulse to a halt. Steve said they wanted to talk with him. If he said yes. The least he can do is hear their stories from them rather than a roundabout way from Jarvis. “No. Thank you. I… I’ll ask.”

“Please do. And please consider speaking with Sir. He’ll—”

“I will.”

“Thank you, Sergeant. I sincerely appreciate it.”

“I… I just don’t want to make it worse,” Bucky blurts out. 

Jarvis doesn’t immediately respond. When he does, the ache in his voice, like the concern from Pepper, plucks at something old inside of him and decides his dilemma regarding speaking with Tony Stark. 

“I highly doubt you can, sir.” A short silence follows in which Bucky finds his eyes drawn to the chair, to the source of his torment also being the source of his salvation, the return of his memory and his life. Then Jarvis says, striving for a cheerier tone, “I feel obliged to inform you that, in spite of our efforts, the team has discerned your location and now wait outside the lab door for you.”

“Oh.” Bucky peers through the glass, but he can’t see the external door from his position on the floor. 

“I could request for them to disperse.”

Bucky glances at the chair again. They built it to help him, they brought him here, talked with him, gave him clothes and food and time, made vows to fight for him and beside him if the need arose. It was more than he deserved, so the least he can do is not outright reject their aid.

“No,” he says, moving to stand. “No, it’s okay. They… mean well.”

“Yes. They do.”

Straightening, Bucky starts to move for the door, but he stops and glances back, not at the chair but at the ceiling. “I know you do, too. And I’m— I’m sorry for freaking out when you tried to talk before. Zola… He had a speaker installed in my cryo tube. He, uh, he talked to me.” Bucky pauses and draws his hand through his hair. Blowing out a breath, he continues. “A lot. And it wasn’t… It wasn’t, you know… It wasn’t nice.”

A moment of silence follows his admission. Then Jarvis says softly, “That’s horrific, sir. I will not—”

“That’s not what I meant. You’re not him, is what I’m trying to say. So you don’t have to— to _not_ communicate with me.”

Another few seconds of silence fill the gap between disclosure and response. When Jarvis does speak, the detectable emotion within his voice confirms for Bucky his decision to create this bond. “I won’t, Sergeant. Thank you for your trust.”

“No problem. But, uh, could you not call me Sergeant? It’s… it’s what he called me.”

Jarvis contemplates the request. “Perhaps Mr. Barnes?”

Bucky laughs at that. “Hell no. That was my pop, not me. Bucky’s fine. Or James.”

“James, then. I do not believe my protocols will allow me a designation as informal as Bucky.”

Bucky nods. He starts again for the door, breathing in a deep breath to prepare himself for the onslaught outside. Jarvis had said the team stood beyond the door, not just Steve and Darcy. As he draws closer, he gains confirmation, a babble of voices audible in the hall.

“Someone should go in,” Pepper says now. “He’s been in there too long.”

“No.” The brittle edge to Steve’s voice makes Bucky wince. “Bucky said he wanted to be alone.”

“And yet here we all are,” Tony says. “ _Not_ giving Barnes his space.”

Darcy responds to him rather than Steve. “That’s because he needs to know he’s not alone.” 

Bucky winces again at the detectable tension in her tone. 

“What does Clint say?” Bruce asks, distracting Bucky from his incipient guilt.

There’s no response to his question though, at least not one Bucky can hear. He moves closer to the closed door, in time to hear Tony say, “Kid…”

“No. You don’t get to call me that. I’m still pissed at you.”

“Fine. _Lewis_ , what did Hawkniss say?”

Darcy heaves out a heavy sigh. “He says we should give Bucky his space.”

“What about Sam?” Bruce asks now.

“He says we should talk to Bucky,” Steve replies.

“Natasha agrees with Clint,” Pepper says. “Except…”

“What?” Tony asks

Pepper hesitates before clarifying Natasha’s advice. “She says we should give James a weapon.”

No one responds to the advice. Bucky feels his left hand twitch, feels the subconscious itch for a weapon. His desire to evade conversation with Natasha ticks up a notch, her understanding of him already too keen. So too does his desire to evade Tony when he responds. 

“Yeah, let’s give the stab-happy former assassin who’s just barricaded himself in with the latest version of Zola’s Throne of Lies a _weapon_. That’s sure to end well.”

“Stark…” Steve warns.

“I agree with Tony,” Bruce says, interrupting the brewing conflict. 

“Thank you.”

“Not for the same reason. You think he’d hurt us. But giving Bucky a weapon could result in him harming himself.”

There’s a soft catch of breath that Bucky knows come from Darcy. His heart clenches at the sound. 

“You don’t think…?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” Bruce admits. “It’s not unlikely, given what he’s endured.”

Stomach churning, Bucky almost turns away at the implication. Suicide never crossed his mind before, Bucky too focused on remembering and then too rattled by his memories to do more than simply endure. He receives no further time to contemplate the possibility before someone rattles the doorknob in an attempt come in. The door holds though, and half a second later, Bucky hears Darcy curse in response.

“Jarvis,” she says. “Open the door.”

“No, Ms. Lewis. I will not.”

Tony joins the crusade. “Do it, Jarvis. He—”

“No, sir. James has invoked his right to privacy. Until he demonstrates an intent to harm himself, which he has not, we should respect his wishes.”

“I— Wait,” Tony mutters. “Since when do you call him James?”

“Since he asked me to, Sir.”

“He _asked_ you? When?”

“Approximately four and a half minutes ago.”

His response generates a flutter of exclamations, Tony’s the loudest of all.

“You’ve been talking to him this whole time, and yet you’ve given us nothing but shit for trying to do the same.”

“Sir,” Jarvis begins, and Bucky feels a small smile form at the detectable exasperation in Jarvis’s voice, “I did not initiate contact with James as all of you have attempted to do. He called me.”

“But I thought he hated you.”

If Jarvis could sigh, Bucky thinks he would. Perhaps he can and is simply restraining himself at the moment. “You would have to ask James about his exact feelings concerning me, Sir.”

“I can’t because you won’t let us. So I’m asking _you_.”

Jarvis says nothing.

“Jarvis.”

The unmistakable sound of command in Tony’s voice makes Bucky tense.

“I would rather not violate James’s privacy, Sir.”

“I rather you would, so—”

Bucky reaches out then and presses the control for the door. Silence falls in the hall and all turn to look at him as the door retracts. Bucky finds Tony off to the right and says to him, “Man said no.”

Tony peers at him half a second. Then his eyes narrow and he says slowly, “He’s not a man.”

Bucky grows taut, but he resists the urge to fist his hands. “That’s what they said about me.”

Tony bristles at his response. “I am _not_ Hydra!”

“No,” Bucky admits as Steve moves to step between them. “You’re not. No one who’s Hydra could have made Jarvis.”

“Thank you, James.”

Bucky glances at the ceiling then, a small smile tugging at his mouth as Tony’s jaw drops. “No problem.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Tony says. He looks from Bucky to Steve to Pepper to Bruce, looks back at Bucky and then at Darcy, who rolls her eyes at him, returns his gaze to Steve, briefly considers the ceiling as Bucky had, before, finally, turning back to Bucky. “Did you just… compliment me?”

From the corners of his eyes, Bucky sees Bruce start to smile.

“Because, if so,” Tony continues, “I’d like to get that on record. And, also, I thought you hated Jarvis. The ghost of your computer past and what-not.” 

Bucky stares at him a few seconds before turning to Steve and cocking a brow. “I didn’t think it was possible for you to get a group together that was crazier than the Commandos, but somehow, you managed.”

The answering smile on Steve’s face helps Bucky relax. “It’s a gift.”

“It is,” Darcy agrees as she moves closer to Bucky. Concern still colors her face and causes a slight tremble in her hands, but she steadies a bit when he meets her gaze. “And here you are, a part of both. So what does that say about you?”

“Doll, if this month has done anything, it’s clearly established my crazy. Yours, though,” and his mouth quirks up as his eyes flit past to take all of them in, this team he tumbled into, that he was brought into by Steve and Darcy and by acceptance he’s not sure he deserves but that he feels that he needs and that he knows that he wants, “I’m just now seeing.”  
*

*


	11. Part Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recovering from the revelation about Zola, Bucky converses with multiple people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Darcy and Bucky talk about suicide in this chapter, in particular the team’s prior discussion of whether or not he would do so as well as other referenced or implied suicide attempts by the team (Bruce, Tony & his self-destructive streak, Steve & his two falls from planes). Some of Bucky’s comments reflect a stereotypical 1940s stance on suicide & mental illness, i.e. how they were signs of weakness rather than legitimate illnesses.
> 
> Also, twit is 1930s slang for idiot, Bucky quotes Casablanca (released in 1942), and I make no apologies for the rant in the second part. You’ll know it when you read it. It was too fun not to do. ☺ 
> 
> As always, everyone here rocks. I've never received the kind of response that I have for my Bucky x Darcy stories here. Thank you! I hope you enjoy this pre-Thanksgiving chapter.

And The Wounded Sing  
Part Eleven

 

Bucky doesn’t know the music that plays in the background, something similar to what played when Stark came to measure Darcy’s wall, something heavy on the guitar and tortured singing. He doesn’t know the food they eat, something that evokes for him images of tall grass fields and camouflage on his arm. He doesn’t know the joke behind her shirt (I Can’t Keep Calm; I Study Political Science) or what she means when she calls Stark an ‘assbutt’ or what any of the classes are that she reads out to him as she contemplates a return to summer school, but he knows that something is wrong, Darcy a dried twig as she sits beside him, stiff and close to snapping. 

Bucky understands her tension. Why wouldn’t she be, given what happened that morning? How many times could he fall apart before she wised up and walked away? This last time he had run _from_ her, had locked himself in with the chair instead. How would that have made her feel? He had come out of it, but not before Darcy had been forced to consider the idea of him committing suicide. Was it too much? He peers at her again, trying to see. She perches over her tablet, her brow creased in a frown and her bottom lip worked ragged by her teeth. Swallowing down his discomfort, Bucky sets his bowl on the coffee table and says, “Do you want me to go?”

Her eyes snap up to his. “What? No. Why?”

“You’re…” He trails off, waving a hand at her as he struggles for the right word. “Upset. And I just— I wondered if it was because of me. Because of what happened today.”

Darcy’s shaking her head before he even finishes his last sentence. “No. I mean, yes, I was worried about you. I _am_ worried, but—”

“Because I don’t have any intention of killing myself.”

Darcy blinks at him a moment before the blood starts to drain from her face. “Oh god. You heard us.”

Bucky nods.

Darcy looks away then, down to the bowls then up to the ceiling then down, again, to her hands. She curls her fingers into her palms to try to still the trembling that starts. Bucky’s about to reach for her when she turns back to him and says, “I’m sorry. That’s not something a person should have to hear.”

“It’s not something you should have to contemplate in the first place. I don’t…” He clenches his jaw and breathes in before forcing himself to speak. She deserved that. “I don’t want you to think that I’m like that, that I’m someone who would—”

“What?” she asks, raising a brow. “Do what most of the team has already tried?”

Bucky freezes. “What?”

“Intense level trauma, bear. You’re not the only one. Tony, Bruce, even Steve—”

The blood drains from his face now. “What? Steve? No. He wouldn’t… He…”

She doesn’t respond to his fragmented denials. She reaches for him instead, but Bucky pulls back, still scrambling for truth. He finds it in a dropped shield, in Steve enduring his final beating on the carrier with no defense made, with no attempt to save his life. If Bucky hadn’t stopped himself, Steve would have let Bucky kill him. 

“It’s never been proven,” Darcy says softly. Her hands flex by her sides, and Bucky knows she wants to clasp his hand and comfort him, but he stays back and waits for her to explain. “There was no way, Steve in the ice for so long. And now, no one’s gonna ask him. But the theory has become more popular over time.”

Bucky presses his lips together. “What theory?”

She hesitates, continuing only when he says her name. “He put the plane down the day after you fell. Some people think he could have found a way to stop the plane without, you know, dying, but he chose not to.”

He doesn’t fight back. Instead he takes off his helmet and drops his shield. Bucky— No. That is not who he is. It’s not, no matter what the target says. He watches the helmet and the shield fall, wanting to discern the strategy beneath. But there’s no time, the Helicarrier falling, his window to complete his mission dwindling, so instead he— 

“Bucky?”

He jerks, the memory falling from him as Steve fell. Lurching to his feet, he starts for the door, narrowly missing the table and the bowls. 

“Bucky?”

The quaver in his voice makes him turn back around. “He dropped his shield, Darcy. And he’s not eating. He said that you were fussing at him about that. And he’s here. He’s not— I have to go. Talk to him or, I don’t know, do something.” 

Darcy nods, a quick little jerk of her head. She clasps her hands in front of her, so tight that her knuckles show stark beneath the skin. 

He closes the distance between them and covers her hands with his own. “Thank you for telling me.”

She relaxes, loosing a long exhale. “Call if you need anything.”

Bucky nods. He squeezes her hands one more time before turning again to go, racing through the door, down the hall, and up the stairs. Nothing will happen— Steve wouldn’t— Not now, not with Bucky here. But if he wasn’t, if Zola found him, if the government imprisoned him, if they executed him, would he then? The certainty that Steve would makes him move faster. He’d had Peggy before, the hope of a future with her, but that hadn’t been enough. Now there was the team, but Bucky can’t recall the last time Steve interacted with them when it wasn’t about him.

Charging through the door, Bucky slides to a stop before their apartment. He takes a moment to try to control his breathing. Steve wouldn’t focus if Bucky were upset, at least not on himself. He’d focus on Bucky. 

And that was the problem.

Taking another breath, Bucky eases inside. The quiet there strikes him, more than usual, starker now after Darcy’s revelation, after her music and her chatter and her sounds and signs of life. He moves down the hall to the living room, spots Steve on the couch bent over the same stack of files and résumés, and he knows then that he won’t be enough to convince Steve, Bucky himself the issue. He considers returning for Darcy, but she’s with him and thus equally as vulnerable to his loss. He needed someone else, someone not connected to him, someone who could just be worried about Steve, who could help Steve. Bucky contemplates Pepper, but then his eyes catch on Steve’s phone, perched on top of the files, and rather than call her, he moves forward into the living room. 

Steve glances up as he approaches. “Hey. Didn’t expect you back for a while.” His brows draw together into a worried frown. “Is everything okay?”

Bucky shakes his head. He eyes the phone, thinking fast.

Steve stands and turns toward him. “Are you—”

“It’s Darcy.” He looks at Steve, the truth in his words becoming clear as he says them. “I think someone upset her. She didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want to upset me, I guess. But I…” He glances again at the phone. “I thought… that I’d call Thor. See if he would talk to her.”

Steve nods. He’s turning for his phone before Bucky can request it. “Here,” he says, holding the phone out to Bucky. “His number’s programmed in. I’ll work on getting you one of your own tomorrow.”

Bucky nods his thanks, bypassing the final guilt-induced thought for later. Turning for the hall, he starts to scroll through the contacts. He passes by Clint, the man a possibility being friendly with both Steve and Darcy, but only after Bucky knows what he did. He hovers a few seconds over Sharon Carter. Maybe, but if Peggy hadn’t— Besides there were issues that she and Steve needed to resolve before Steve would even consider opening up to her. 

Closing the door to his room behind him, Bucky continues on. A name four down from Sharon makes him pause: Nick Fury. The man was supposed to be dead. Bucky had shot him. Multiple times. He— He shakes his head. He could wait to solve that mystery after resolving this. Bucky scrolls past Darcy and then Thor, and again, his thumb hovers over the name, but Thor’s focus would be on Darcy, not on Steve, if something were to happen to him, so he continues, stopping again as the next option appears on the screen. 

Natasha Romanoff.

His pulse quickens at the thought of talking to her. She fought beside Steve in D.C. They were more than colleagues, if her presence in his pictures indicated anything. They were friends, and she would understand about Bucky, her past similar to his own. But Bucky moves past, he and Natasha having issues of their own they needed to resolve before Bucky would feel comfortable opening up to her about him and Steve. 

No option in S. None in T. Bucky begins to despair, only a few contacts left, and then, in the last spot, he sees Sam Wilson. He was the only Sam on the list so presumably he was the one who had packed Steve’s apartment and who Steve had called that morning for advice about Bucky. Exiting out of contacts, Bucky checks the recent calls and sees one to Sam that morning and four from him afterwards, calls that had been unanswered by Steve. 

Mouth flattening, he clicks on the name and presses send.

Sam answers after two rings. “Steve, man. _Finally_. I’ve left four—”

“It’s not Steve.” 

Silence slams down between them. Bucky licks his lips and moves away from the door. “It’s, uh, Bucky. Barnes. I’m calling about Steve.”

“Is he okay?”

“He’s not injured. He— He…” Bucky pauses, discomforted by the idea of spilling all to a guy he doesn’t even know. But he trusts Steve, and Steve trusts Sam, enough to call him about Bucky, so he draws in a preparatory breath and says, “You know. If Steve called you about me, then you know. You know how he… how he can get. About me.”

For a moment, Sam doesn’t respond. Then he says carefully, “I do.”

“How?”

“What?”

“How do you know? Why does Steve trust you?”

There’s another pause. The caution remains when Sam speaks again. “Why don’t you ask him?”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Bucky sighs at the resistance. His hand tightens on the phone, but he pushes past his annoyance, Steve too important. “He doesn’t know that I’m calling you. He thinks I’m calling someone else about something else because if he knew I was calling you about him, he’d shut down and I can’t have him do that. He needs to talk to someone.”

“Not you?”

“No,” Bucky grounds out through gritted teeth. 

“Why not?”

“Because it’s about me, you twit. I thought you knew. You called him four times today.”

“I did,” Sam says, calm in the face of Bucky’s belligerence. “I know Steve’s in a bad place right now. I’m just trying to figure out why _you_ would call _me_ considering that, the last time we met, you kicked me off a Helicarrier.”

Bucky freezes. His mouth goes dry. “You’re the guy with the wings.”

“Yes.”

Silence extends between them again. Sam had been in the car with Steve and Natasha, had been the one driving. It was his car that Bucky destroyed. And he’d been the one to stop Bucky from killing Steve, only for Bucky to repay him by kicking him off the Helicarrier.

For trying to kill him.

“Don’t hang up,” he says quickly. “Please. I want to help Steve.”

“By talking to me?”

“Yes. I need you to talk to him.”

“The man needs to answer my calls for that to happen.”

“I know. Which is why you need to come here.”

There’s a second or two of shocked silence. Then Sam starts to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Bucky asks, trying not to snap.

“Nothing. Except you’re the second person today to ask me that.”

Bucky starts to frown. “Steve? But I thought—”

“Not Steve. Tony Stark.”

Another blindsiding reveal. For this one, Bucky shaky from all the rest, he sits down, easing into the chair by the window. “Why? Was it about Steve?”

“No. Or at least not completely. Man’s been pestering me since D.C. to join his crazy-ass team. Or Steve’s team, as he keeps saying.”

“Why haven’t you?”

“Because I haven’t,” Sam says. “Now why do you want me to talk to Steve?”

Bucky narrows his eyes. “You said you knew. Do you—”

“Humor me, Barnes. You want me to drop everything to come up there. The least you can do is explain to me why.”

Bucky restrains the sigh, but just barely. His fingers tighten again on Steve’s phone and it gives an ominous creak before Bucky relaxes. He pulls in a deep breath. His eyes scan the Manhattan skyline, shadowed now in evening, and then he says, slowly, “I’m here now, but I might not always be. Not because I want to leave. There are the people who had me, and they— they’re looking. But even if someone doesn’t get me, then I… still might fade. I’m not— I’m better than I was. I’m here and I’m stable, mostly, but if I stop, I can’t let Steve fall apart. Not again.”

There’s silence again as Sam contemplates his speech. Bucky bites at his lip. He tries to stem the brewing panic within him. If Sam said no, if Bucky pushed him away… He’d figure something out. He’d ask Darcy. He’d call Natasha. He’d—

“You can’t help a man who doesn’t want help.”

“Steve doesn’t need help. He just… He needs to know he’s not alone.”

“Okay.”

The answer comes so quickly Bucky doesn’t process it at first. “You’ll come?”

“Yeah. I’ll call Stark tomorrow, take him up on his offer. He said there was some Avengers thing this weekend anyway, so it won’t be a surprise to Steve if I suddenly show up.”

“I— Thank you. And—” His throat closes. He swallows past it to force out the rest. “I’m sorry. For— for trying to kill you. I wasn’t… myself then.”

“No,” Sam says slowly. “It doesn’t seem like you were.”

Bucky nods then, an absurd action as Sam can’t see it. He clears his throat and looks back at the door as though he expected Steve to be standing there, glaring at him for interfering. He’s not, so Bucky says, “Well, uh, bye.”

He hangs up the phone. As he does, he hears Sam laugh. The tension in his chest eases at the sound. Sam would come and they would talk to Steve and there would be people for him, people other than Bucky, just in case, people who could listen and advise without the weight of the past bearing down upon them. People who could stay.

Breathing out, Bucky switches off the phone and walks back into the hall to the living room. Steve still sits on the couch, a thick casebook propped open before him now.

“Everything okay?” he asks as Bucky approaches.

“I hope so.” 

Steve nods, distracted, his finger tracing a footnote in the book. Mouth flattening again, Bucky slides the phone into his pocket, walks up to the coffee table, and starts sliding it across the floor.

“Hey!” Steve lunges for his book, but Bucky pushes the table clear. He turns as Steve stands and blocks his path. Steve pulls up short, his eyes widening a bit at the unexpected confrontation. The surprise lasts, though, only for a second before stubborn Steve rears his head again. “I need to read that. It could be—”

“It could be the most important document in the whole damn universe, but you’re going to read it tomorrow.”

Steve works his jaw, trying to restrain the sigh that Bucky sees well within him. “Buck—”

“No. You’re looking up stuff about me, right? To help my life?” Bucky doesn’t wait for Steve to respond, both of them knowing the answer. “As the person living my goddamn life, I’m telling you that you’re going to stop so you can eat and do something fun.”

This gives Steve pause. “Fun?”

“Yeah, that thing you seem incapable of doing unless someone’s tricked or guilted you into it.” He pauses then and sends Steve a sharp grin. “Guess which one I’m doing.”

Steve glances from Bucky to the books behind him. Then, suddenly, as Darcy had before, Steve deflates, the fight leaving him in a long sigh. “Okay,” he says, looking back at Bucky, “but I still don’t dance, so don’t even think about mentioning it.”

“Wasn’t gonna,” Bucky says. “But they still got baseball, right? Or a movie. I haven’t seen one of those in seventy years. Even you ought to know a good one by now.”

Steve gives him a look, but Bucky’s plan still takes root, the intensity within Steve shifting from helping Bucky evade jail to helping Bucky watch a movie. “I’ve gotten lots of recommendations from people. I even have a list, but—” He stops then as a slow smile unfurls across his face, one that casts off burdens and years and brings some of Stevie back to worn Steve Rogers. “You know they made a flick about _The Hobbit_. A couple, actually.”

Bucky feels an answering smile form at the news. “No foolin’?”

Steve shakes his head. “Tolkien wrote more, too. A trilogy called _The Lord of the Rings_.”

“They make those into flicks too?”

Steve nods. He starts to move past Bucky for the kitchen. “Same guy did. He actually made those first. But you should read the books before watching them. I have them if you’re interested.”

Bucky follows Steve. “Of course I’m interested. I’m the one who bought _The Hobbit_ in the first place. Hey!” He stops in the kitchen entrance. “Is that one of the things in my box?”

Steve shakes his head as he opens the pantry door. “I’m not sure what happened to it. But we can get another.” He reaches inside, pulling back a moment later with a bag of Doritos in his hand.

Bucky looks at the bag and then at Steve and starts to grin. “Steve, I think this the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” 

*

“It’s sacrilege, Darcy. Fucking blasphemy. They gave Bilbo a backpack. A fucking backpack. He doesn’t have a backpack in the book. He just goes, with nothing, because he’s a curmudgeonly little shit who just wants to sit in his Hobbit hole and eat food. And they didn’t have the talking purse, but they had a hedgehog? Did anyone even read the book? And how the fuck could they make so many movies out of it? The book isn’t that goddamn long. _The Count of Monte Cristo_ , that’s long. _The Hobbit_ , no. And yet they have three movies that are three hours long. There isn’t even an intermission. What the fuck is wrong with—”

He stops, startled out of his rant by a faint snorting. Bucky looks over, finds Darcy with one hand over her mouth, trying her best not to laugh. She loses the fight when they lock eyes, doubling over and laughing so hard that her shoulders shake.

Bucky narrows his eyes, torn between wanting to laugh along with her, hers infectious and joyous and soothing away his nascent embarrassment, and wanting to sink down onto the couch and pout. He settles for the latter, slumping back against the cushions and crossing his arms over his chest. He props his feet on the coffee table beside their empty spaghetti bowls. When Darcy discovers him a second later, she snorts again and laughs harder, moving into the silent phase of hysterics when he lets loose a soft sigh.

“Oh god. Oh god, bear,” she says, leaning forward until she kneels beside him. A few tears leak from the corners of her eyes from the strength of her laughter. “Your face… Do you know how many cranky old man jokes are running through my head right now?”

Bucky sits, his hands waving about in cinematic distress. “His sword didn’t even glow, Darcy! It was supposed to be blue when there were orcs around but it wasn’t. Jesus fuck, _Steve_ made better movies than this.”

Darcy’s eyes widen then and she puffs with glee. “Dude, do you think we can get Steve to watch those? While I’m there? Recording everything?”

Bucky feels his mouth twitch, but he bites back his smile, sensing his chance. “Maybe. If you do something for me.”

Darcy sits back on her heels. He tries not to stare at the pull of denim across her thighs, but his eyes glance down of their own accord, making Darcy’s grin turn sly. “A bargain?” she asks as she eyes him. “I might be interested. What are your terms?”

“I get Steve to watch one of his cinematic masterpieces while you’re there and maybe, _maybe_ , even get him to give you his USO spiel too—” He winces at the delighted squeal that leaves her body. “If,” he continues, sitting now so he can look her more squarely in the eye, “you tell me why you were upset yesterday.” 

Darcy collapses back against the couch like a popped balloon and groans.

Now Bucky grins. He twists toward her in a mirror of their previous pose. “Thought I’d forget about that, didn’t you?”

She glares at him a moment before giving in. “Not forget, per se. Just be permanently distracted by the latest angst in your epic bromance with Steve.”

“Bromance?”

“An intensely close but non-sexual relationship between two dudes. You and Steve are kind of the prototype for it, bear.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, so did you like the spaghetti?” Darcy asks, looking past him at their empty bowls. “I—”

“Nope. Not gonna happen. What’s going on?”

Darcy heaves out another sigh before standing and grabbing the bowls. “Nothing’s going on,” she says as she makes her way to the kitchen. “I just got into a fight with Jane.”

Bucky follows her. “That’s not nothing. She’s your friend.”

Darcy drops the bowls into the sink. “No, she’s a bossy control freak who needs to learn I can make my own decisions.”

Bucky stops beside her. He leans back against the counter to catch her eye. Darcy meets his gaze but says nothing, so he arches a brow, which prompts her to sigh again. She reaches out and fiddles with her fork, dropping it after half a second to drum her fingers against the sink basin. Then she starts to explain.

“Okay, so I called Jane yesterday because I wanted Erik’s advice on how to help you, but no one picked up, so I left a message, and, apparently, I was a tad… upset in it, so when Jane called me back, she was a tad upset in response and asked me about you. And me. And you and me.”

Bucky drops his gaze. Discomfort slithers through him again at the thought of upsetting Darcy the day before. Her and Steve and everyone with his inability to deal. “Let me guess,” he says, turning toward the sink. “She disapproves.”

Now Darcy turns around so she can meet his gaze. “Not disapproves. She’s just… concerned. It’s not everyday you learn that your friend’s being hunted by a disembodied Nazi. Even with all that she’s gone through, it’s going to take her a while to adjust.”

“And you?” Bucky asks, staring down at the counter.

Darcy reaches out then and tugs on his arm, pulling Bucky around until he faces her. “I’ve adjusted. Kind of had to with how we first met. But even if I hadn’t, I live in probably the safest building on the planet surrounded by legit superheroes, one of whom I’m now dating, so I’m safe. Or as safe as I’m going to be, which is safe enough.”

“I disagree.”

The expression in her eyes turns fond. “Of course you do. I have to say, I’m surprised you didn’t hogtie me and Steve and force us to go on the run after learning about Zola.”

“I considered it. But I didn’t want to take you from your life. Or interfere in it,” he adds after a moment.

“You’re not. Jane is. She’ll deal with it or she won’t, but it’s my life and I want you in it, so end of story.”

She twists back around and yanks at the faucet, sending a gush of hot water into the basin. Bucky watches her squirt soap onto the dishes, her movements stiff and her jaw tense. He abandons any notion of pressing, learning well enough from Steve the dangers of poking the stubborn beast, and instead reaches for her clean bowl to rinse. “Dating, huh? Guess I got to take you on a real date then.” 

Her hands still. Bucky glances up to find her looking at him, relief in her eyes. He smiles at her, a small, lopsided one that brings a broad one to her face. “I guess so. Or I can take you out.” The look in her eyes turns sly as she begins again to clean. “Unless the notion of a dame taking out a dude is too offensive to your old man sensibilities.” 

“It’s not offensive,” Bucky says, plucking the clean fork from her hand. “I’ll even let you lead during the dancing.”

“Oh, no,” Darcy says, swiveling around to face him. Her eyes are wide, and her head whips back and forth in tiny, rapid shakes. “No, no. No, no, no, no, no. I do not dance. Not like that.”

“Like what?”

“All official and coordinated. I flail around with the best of them when Old Bessie’s playing, but that’s it.”

“Have you even tried?” he asks, trying hard not to smile.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“See above, re: coordination. That’s a gene no Lewis woman has. Also, I don’t know how.”

Bucky stares at her for all of two seconds before he’s dropping the fork and reaching instead for her hand. “Come on.”

“Wait!” Darcy lunges for a towel as Bucky pulls her from the kitchen. “Where are we going?”

“Here,” Bucky says, bringing them to a stop in the living room. He starts to push the coffee table aside and the couch back. “I’m going to teach you how to dance.”

Her eyes widen again. “What? No. _No._ Seriously, bear. I kicked Barton in the balls _three times_ when he was trying to show me how to punch. I’ll—”

“Be fine,” he says, smiling at her. “Trust me. If I could teach Steve how to do this, I can teach you.”

Her panic fades a bit in the wake of the revelation. “You taught Steve?”

Bucky nods. He uses her distraction to clasp her right hand and draw her toward him. He guides her left hand to his shoulder and places his right on her waist. “Now,” he says, “all you’re doing is stepping back twice and then once to the right.”

Darcy blinks at him. “That’s it?”

“Yep. Basic foxtrot steps.” He grins at her then, teasing, “If you manage that without kicking me in the balls, then we can add more.”

Darcy nods, but the teasing does nothing to lessen her panic. She stares down at the floor, at her feet. Bucky can feel her pulse race in the sensors of his left hand. He squeezes her waist, and she looks up at him, her eyes still wide.

“What? What did I do wrong?”

“Nothing.” He rubs his thumb against her shirt, gives her hand a light squeeze. “We haven’t done anything yet. Just breathe, okay? You can’t hurt me. Even if you do kick me in the balls.”

“Don’t underestimate me,” she says, but she exhales as she does, releasing a bit of her tension. “I think I scarred Barton for life.”

“I’ll take my chances. Now, step back with your right foot and then with your left and then step to the right. Okay?”

Darcy nods. She bends her head again to look at her feet, and Bucky allows himself the briefest of smiles at the intense concentration on her face before he releases her waist to bump her lightly on the chin.

“Eyes up here, dollface.”

She jerks her gaze up, her cheeks going pink. “Sorry.”

Bucky shakes his head. He means to return his hand to her waist, to start guiding her back and teaching her how to dance, but he doesn’t, the play of light across her face arresting him. She’s beautiful, open and trusting, and he moves in instead, touching his fingertips to her cheek and dragging his thumb across the curve of her chin. As he does, her pulse thrums and her hand tightens around his. Bucky swallows and flattens his hand, cupping the side of her face. Darcy leans into his touch, making his heart pound along with hers and stealing the breath from his chest. He licks his lips and tries to remember how to breathe, and that’s when she lowers her hand from his shoulder to his waist, to the pocket of his hoodie where she curls her fingers in and tugs, urging him forward. He does, bending down, keeping his eyes fixed on her and the play of emotions across her face, anticipation and desire, happiness and nerves, but not one shred of fear. 

The knock on the door cracks like gunfire throughout the apartment, making the both jump.

“Jesus Christ!” Darcy yelps. Her eyes fly open, startled and wide, and then they narrow when the knocks resume. “I am going to _kill_ whoever is out there. You got that, Jarvis? Tell whoever is there to go away.” She looks at Bucky, her face resolved. “Now.”

“I shall inform Doctor Foster, Ms. Lewis.”

“Wait. Jane?” Darcy turns toward the door at Jarvis’s affirmative, frowning. “She’s not supposed to get here until next week.”

“Apparently she came early,” Bucky says as he lowers his hands. “I can’t imagine why.”

“Wait,” Darcy says, lurching back toward him. She digs her hand into his hoodie, keeping him in place. “Do not even think about moving.”

“Darcy?” Jane calls through the door. “I know you’re in there. I heard you.”

Darcy looses one hand from Bucky’s hoodie and lifts it in a tortuously slow arc to her mouth, where she motions, emphatically, glancing over her shoulder as she does, for him to be silent. “Maybe,” she hisses, “if we’re quiet, she’ll—”

“I’m not going away until we’ve talked,” Jane says now.

Darcy closes her eyes. Her jaw tightens. “Fuck. _Fuck_. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” 

Bucky starts to laugh. “Yeah, my sentiments too.”

“Just… stand here,” Darcy says as she opens her eyes. “And don’t move.” 

She releases him then and starts for the door, grumbling the whole way about pesky scientists and their alarmingly bad timing. Bucky works to steady his breathing, smoothing a hand down his shirt and one through his hair, trying, yet failing, he’s sure, to not look like he was about two seconds from debauching Darcy in the middle of her apartment. He hears her open the door and then she says, her irritation clear, “You’re early.” 

“Of course I’m early. We need to talk.” 

“And we will. But not—”

“Yes, now.” There’s a grunt then followed by footsteps, and Bucky knows that Jane’s pushed her way inside. “Thor will kill me if we’re still fighting by your— Oh.”

Jane stops in her tracks at the sight of Bucky. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and nods once. “Doctor Foster.”

Jane blinks at him. “Hi.”

Darcy swoops in then, circling around until she stands in front of Jane. “And now that we’ve all said hello,” she says, flapping her arms in an effort to corral Jane back toward the door, “we’ll all say goodbye. Bucky and I were just finishing lunch, so I’ll talk to you later.”

Jane digs in her heels. “But—”

Darcy does, too. “No—”

“It’s okay,” Bucky says, starting forward. “I was just leaving.”

Darcy spins back around and narrows her eyes at him. “No, you weren’t.”

He’d laugh at the expression on her face if not for the careful way that Jane watched him. “Sorry, doll. Duty calls. Told Steve I’d help him read through case files this afternoon. Besides,” he says, glancing from her to Jane, “you two should probably talk.”

Jane presses her lips together, understanding his implication. Bucky nods at her again, trying to convey his understanding, before easing past. Darcy looks first at him and then at Jane then she lets out a long, loud groan. “Just… stay here,” she says to Jane. “I’ll be right back.”

Bucky walks down the hall, Darcy fast on his heels. The door’s still open. Bucky steps into the hall and turns back around. He half expects to see Jane looming at the edge of the hall, but she’s nowhere in sight. He turns back to Darcy and bursts out laughing at the look of frustration on her face.

“It’s okay,” he says. “We’ll pick this up later.”

“We better.”

“We will.” 

He reaches for her hand then and gives it a light squeeze. He means to leave it at that, stepping back to depart, but Darcy moves in, wrapping her arms around his waist and gathering him into a fierce hug. Bucky follows suit, and he means to leave it at that, but he finds himself pressing a kiss to the top of her head instead and then lower, to her temple, as Darcy tilts her face toward him. Bucky nearly breaks at the small catch of breath in her throat, but he controls himself, saying instead, “Come by later? Tonight?”

He feels her nod.

“Good.” 

Bucky hangs on a moment longer before he steps back. Darcy does the same, though her hands twitch and she shuffles in place, clearly contemplating whether she should toss all notions of restraint out the window and just pick up whether they had left off inside. Bucky decides for her, easing backwards toward the stairs. She watches him go, and he grins as she pouts, wishing, for the second time since she had given it to him, that he had her camera so he could render this moment real, made permanent in space and time and memory. 

*


	12. Part Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After his near kiss with Darcy, Bucky talks with Thor and then, finally, confronts Tony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh at life. The end of the semester seized my life in its evil little grip and has only just recently let me go. Please excuse any spelling errors. This chapter is hot off the presses.
> 
> The referenced Dodger pitcher is Clayton Kershaw. Google him, particularly with his beard and long hair. He is most definitely a golden god. Also, Bucky recollects reading The Land of Oz books to his sister. Alpha is a reference to a robot invented by Harry May who, according to hysterical news reports at the time, ended up shooting May with a gun. And Tony quotes Star Wars. Multiple times. And Casablanca.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has left comments, kudos, and has bookmarked the story. The fic passed 1000 kudos recently, which blows my mind. Thank you so much. I hope you enjoy!

And The Wounded Sing  
Part Twelve

 

The laugh stills Bucky. He stops outside the door to his apartment, his hand on the knob and his head tilted to the side, listening. A second later the laugh sounds again, rich and loud and broad. Bucky tenses at the sound, the laugh not from Steve, who follows with his own, fainter than the first but no less genuine. He wonders for a moment if it’s Sam, arriving early, but then the haze of Darcy about his head dissipates and he remembers Jane and her mention of Thor and how the laugh, likely, undoubtedly now that he recalls his brief interactions with Thor before he returned to London, belonging to him.

His mouth flattens at the realization. He glances at the stairwell and briefly considers retreating to the gym or to the common room to avoid a second slice of concerned disapproval, particularly this one from a legit hammer-wielding god who could crush Bucky’s head with one hand and who likely wanted to due to the recent turn of events in Darcy’s apartment.

At the memory of the near kiss, Bucky feels himself smile. The reality of Darcy’s desire for him still baffled him, but he can’t deny it. The beat of her heart when he touched her did not lie, nor did his when she encouraged him forward. Darcy wanted him and Bucky wanted her, and while Jane might disapprove, and perhaps Thor did too, Steve didn’t and neither did Darcy, and they were who mattered to Bucky, so he breathes in once and twists the knob, squaring his shoulders as he steps inside. 

He finds Thor and Steve on the couch in the living room. A baseball game plays before them, the Dodgers at the Mets. Bucky scowls at the TV, still prickly at the revelation from Steve the night before about the Dodgers moving from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. He wonders how Jim reacted when they moved, or how he would have had either Steve or Bucky survived the war. He never showed the same appreciation for the sport as Bucky and Steve had, or even that Dum-Dum did, the man a diehard Cardinals fan, but Bucky knows that he would have enjoyed the hell out of it, if not for the opportunity to rib the shit out of Cap and the Sarge and their—

“Bucky?”

Bucky blinks and looks at Steve. Both he and Thor face him now, Steve with his perpetual frown in place. Bucky steels himself against it and points at the TV. “Just wondering how Jim reacted to this. To the move.”

The frown melts away. “Probably well. One of his sons played ball for a while.”

“For the Dodgers?”

Steve shakes his head. “For the Giants, then the Orioles and the White Sox. Center fielder, then right field.”

Bucky nods. He peers again at the TV, at the Met currently striking out from a wicked fastball thrown by a Dodger pitcher who bears a passing resemblance to Thor. The man himself stares at Bucky, his gaze steady and sharp in its assessment. Steeling himself again, Bucky meets it. They stare at each other a moment then Thor smiles and stands from the couch. 

“It is wonderful to see you again, James.” He circles around the couch to stand before Bucky, his smile and the warmth in his eyes a far cry from Jane’s stiff welcome. Bucky tries to relax at the sight of it, but he can’t, Thor regarding him again from up close. He endures the stare, aware of Steve watching them from the couch, and after a few moments, Thor murmurs, “You look well.” 

Bucky shrugs. He resists the urge to drop his gaze. “Haven’t tried to stab anyone recently, so that’s a plus.”

Behind Thor, Steve sighs, but Thor just laughs and extends his arm back toward the television. “Will you join us? Steve was instructing me of the rules of your nation’s sport. A most elegant, if somewhat glacial, game.”

Bucky shifts in place. His eyes flit to Steve, who’s twisted around to look at him. “I don’t—”

“I have brought pizza,” Thor says. “Two, in fact, fashioned in the style of this city.”

Bucky stares at him, silent. No trace of a ploy mars Thor’s features, his expression composed into gentle curiosity, which means, of course, that there is a ploy, either Darcy or Steve advising Thor on this culinary course of action. Bucky suspects Darcy, she having more experience with Bucky rediscovering various items of food.

Steve looks from one to the other as the silence grows. “He means—”

“I know what he means,” Bucky says, giving Steve a look. 

“Then you will join us?” Thor asks.

Bucky glances back at him. He’s about to say no when he catches his first whiff of the pizza. His stomach growls in response, despite his lunch with Darcy. 

Thor smiles at the sound. “Excellent!” He extends his arm toward Bucky and begins to herd him toward the couch. Bucky slips free, bypassing the couch for the easy chair by the window. He considers plopping down there, distant enough for a delusion of safety from the superior strength of Thor, but if he wants to date Darcy and to build a support base for Steve, he can’t alienate those in the Tower. He grabs the chair instead and sets it a few feet from the couch, within view of both Steve and Thor as well as the television.

It’s then he notices the evening sky behind Shea Stadium. Bucky turns to the window, to the sun shining bright on Manhattan in mid-afternoon, and then to Steve, where he cocks a brow.

Steve starts to smile. “It’s last night’s game. I asked Jarvis to record it. Didn’t think you’d want to watch Part Two tonight.”

Bucky snorts and settles back against the chair. “You’re right about that. I can’t believe you liked it.”

“I liked _parts_ of it.”

“Parts of what?” Thor asks, looking between them.

“ _The Hobbit_ ,” Bucky says. “You seen it?”

Thor shakes his head.

“Don’t. It sucked. Read the book instead.”

“I shall.”

Bucky nods and returns his gaze to the TV. Another Met strikes out, this one to end the inning, but only he sees it, both Thor and Steve watching Bucky. The twin stares make him want to sigh, to get up and leave, to return to Darcy’s and push Jane out and pick up where they left off, but he sits still and endures. The silence persists for thirty seconds, broken finally after a commercial for beer when Thor speaks.

“I once spent two delirious days watching all the _Harry Potter_ films with Darcy. She said they were required viewing for every person on this world, particularly one who now made his home in their place of origin. I anticipated the experience to be enjoyable, having enjoyed my prior exposures to Midgardian culture, yet Darcy maintained a steady stream of complaint throughout all eight films, particularly concerning the grievous errors made during their adaptations. When we finished, I asked her why she insisted so mightily that I watch them, especially if they were so significantly flawed.” Thor moves forward to the edge of the couch, but he doesn’t look at either Bucky or Steve. He peers at the window as Bucky had just moments before, his face creased in contemplation. “She said our shared trauma had now bonded us more fiercely as comrades and wasn’t that a worthy outcome despite the near twenty-four hours of cinematic distress we had just experienced.” 

Silence follows Thor’s speech, silence in which both Bucky and Steve gape at him in ways neither of their mommas taught them to do, then the buzzer sounds on the oven and Thor stands.

“Ah,” he says. “The pizzas.”

He circles the couch and proceeds to the kitchen, casting, as he goes, a brilliant smile upon Bucky and Steve. Bucky hears him open the oven, hears the screech of metal on metal followed a moment later by the delicious smell of pizza. Gaping still, he looks at Steve, who turns to him, both brows raised. 

“Okay, _that_ ,” Bucky says, “you can translate.”

Steve glances over his shoulder at the kitchen. “Either he thinks you should be thanking me for introducing you to modern Earth culture, or,” he says, facing Bucky now, a smile on his face, “he just gave you his blessing to date Darcy.”

Bucky looks at the kitchen. Inside, Thor rummages for plates. Steve rises to help, disappearing a moment later through the entrance and leaving Bucky with his thoughts. The latter possibility that Steve posed pricks at him, too freely given to be trusted. Standing too, he follows the rest, coming to a stop just inside the entrance.

“I’ve only been here five minutes,” he says to Thor. “You can’t know.”

Thor shrugs as he cuts the first of the pizzas into thirds. “Perhaps not. But I have discovered that the length of an acquaintance matters little when concerning its intimacy.” He shifts toward the second pizza and begins to slice. “I lived beside my brother Loki for nigh on a millennia without discerning his true animosity toward me.”

“That’s not exactly helping your argument,” Bucky says as Thor grabs the first plate from Steve.

“Because it is only half an argument.” He heaps one slice from each pizza onto the plate before turning to offer it to Bucky. He smiles when Bucky accepts and continues. “My experiences with my brother have forced me to hone my perception of others. And you underestimate the extent of your renewal,” he says, directing the second loaded plate toward Steve.

“Maybe so,” Bucky says, unsure why he’s pushing, but pushing all the same, “but your girlfriend sure as hell didn’t think so.” 

Steve sighs. He peers around Thor to give Bucky a look, which Bucky meets with his own glare.

Thor steps between them. He holds the final plate of pizza in hand and uses it to point back at the living room. Gritting his teeth, Bucky spins on his heel and returns to his chair, plopping down so fast he almost dislodges his pizza. Thor and Steve follow. Steve eyes Bucky, but Bucky ignores him in favor of glaring at Thor. But Thor, in turn, ignores his glare, instead raising his first enormous slice and devouring nearly half in one bite. He tilts his head toward Bucky’s plate, refusing to avert his gaze until Bucky lifts one of his slices and takes a bite. His eyes flutter at the tang of the sauce and the hot and gooey cheese. He takes his time chewing, the crust crisp and light and the pepperoni spicy, and when he swallows, Thor continues.

“As I, Jane bases her actions upon her prior experiences. For her, those experiences concern me.”

Bucky blinks at Thor over his pizza. “We’re nothing alike.”

Thor takes another bite, smaller than the first but no less robust. He peers at Bucky as he chews, his gaze as keen as it was when Bucky first walked into the apartment. “I disagree,” he says upon swallowing, “but I was referring more to our circumstances than to ourselves.”

Bucky cocks a brow. “I’m not a thunder god.”

“No. Yet I am sure you will bear some understanding for what I am about to say. After I first met Jane, circumstances dictated for me to return to my home in Asgard, and, despite my vow to her, prevented my return. Years passed, and she grieved, fearing I would be lost to her forever.”

Steve shakes his head. “No offense, Thor, but Jane and Darcy are different people, and you can’t compare Bucky being recaptured by Hydra to you returning to your world.”

“No,” Thor concedes. “You cannot. But I was not.” He retrieves his plate and takes another bite, prompting Bucky to do the same. When Bucky does, Thor turns to Steve, confirming, for Bucky, Darcy’s influence in this course of action. He waits until Steve takes his first bite before turning back toward Bucky.

“What were you meaning then?” Bucky asks, switching to his second slice.

Thor draws in a deep breath in preparation for his response. “The years I spent away from Jane,” he begins, “I crossed the stars in an endless crusade to calm the chaos my brother had caused. Each victory was met with new conflict, which, in my rage at him for his actions here and on our world, for the innocents he killed and those whose minds he violated, I pursued. I nearly lost all, and lost too much, in the pursuit.”

Bucky looks away. He needs no translation for this. The words dig their way under his skin and unearth the roots of his rage. Girls in a cave and Howard and Maria Stark. Natasha Romanov and Steve in a plane and his fellows in the 107th who were disintegrated before they could surrender. And Bucky too and now Darcy, Zola setting his sights on her. How many more had suffered? How many were suffering now and would suffer in the future before Hydra was stopped?

Thor leans forward to catch Bucky’s eye. “This is why Jane interferes. Not in any opposition to your character, but in understanding of it. Darcy has spoken most highly of you, as has Steve, and the quality they cite above all others in you is protection.” He quiets a moment to peer at Bucky, his gaze cutting to the quick as his words had before. “This I saw when we first met. This drove you to the device that restored your memory, despite your abhorrence for it. And this, Jane fears, will drive you to wage war with Hydra.”

Bucky the bear, crouched in the cave mouth, eyes fixed on the dangers that lurk in the dark, on the threats that circle around them and howl.

How long ‘til he stood and, teeth bared, entered the fray?

“And she fears it will drive Darcy as well.”

Bucky stills. His heart pounds, but his breath catches in his chest.

“Consider all she has done for you and because of you,” Thor continues, watching him closely. “Consider too what she may do now that she works for Anthony.”

Bucky doesn’t have to consider. He knows. He remembers, Darcy standing down Thor on the side of the road for him, and Stark too, though he held a weapon on Bucky and thus on her. She stood Bucky down in the lab too, shoving Jane to safety but staying behind to help him, to save him. And how many times had she said she wanted to wreak vengeance against those that hurt him? She vowed they would never hurt him again, that she wouldn’t let them. Bucky stares at her, the faint light from the lamp catching the corners of her eyes. Her fingers brand him where they curl around his hand, seeking to disentangle her sweater from his knuckles and joints. She lifts her chin and stares Bucky down, defiant in her vow to protect him from Hydra, and he sees Steve in the gesture, in the stubborn set of her shoulders. He shakes his head, this too much, the two of them working so hard, and sacrificing so much, to make him— 

“You can’t lay that on him,” Steve says, his shoulders again set as he looks at Thor. “Those were Darcy’s choices. She wants to help.”

“Aye,” Thor says. “She does. She seeks to prove herself. And those that do decide recklessly at times, do they not?”

Steve says nothing. His hands clench and he works his jaw, and the possibility that he’ll punch Thor makes Bucky sit forward and say, “They do. This one’s about to now. And trust me when I say that trying to talk them out of it fails every time.”

Thor looks at him. A wry smile appears on his face. “It does. A lesson hard learned by you and I, but not yet, it seems, by Jane.”

Bucky snorts. “She will. Darcy about bit my head off the few times I tried to give that spiel.”

“Mine as well. And I do not say what I say to dissuade you from courting Darcy. The joy that she feels because of you is clear. I would not deny her, or you, this opportunity, having so nearly lost it myself.”

Bucky leans back against the chair. “You’re just concerned.” 

Thor nods. “She has never experienced danger of this sort before. Never directly drawn the ire of one who wished her harm. She is young.” His face breaks out into a small, yet genuine, smile then. “Though not quite so young in a few days’ time.”

Bucky frowns at him. “Why?”

“It will be the day of her birth. Anthony has organized a celebration.” Thor glances at Steve and then at Bucky, doubt flickering onto his face as he does. “Were you… not aware?”

Steve fields the question. “We just learned about it. Or _I_ just learned about it.” He looks at Bucky to clarify. “Stark stopped by when you were at Darcy’s. He described it as, and I quote, an ‘I’m sorry I was a cranky asshole, Lewis, so here’s some superheroes for you to wrangle and a bunch of beer for you to drink, so have a happy birthday on me’ surprise party.” Steve shakes his head then; the flat line of his mouth conveys his displeasure, but whether it’s still for Thor or for Stark and parties Bucky doesn’t know. “He wants you to stop by his workshop today to talk about it. Apparently he’s invited the rest of the team, including Sam. I told him it was too soon, that you weren’t—”

“It’s fine,” Bucky says, his heart beginning to race again. “They’ll be here for Darcy, not me.”

Thor tilts his head at him. “But you will attend, will you not? I know Clint is most desirous to meet you.”

“I— Maybe. I don’t… talk. Much. And clothes— I don’t…” He blows out a breath and glances down at his plain white tee and his ever-present hoodie. Nausea licks its way up his throat at the plainness of what he finds, at the stark contrast to how he’d dressed before, shined shoes and sharp suits and a smooth, easy smile.

Steve eases forward to the edge of the couch. “Nobody will care. It’s—”

“A party thrown by a guy with his own damn building in Manhattan. Yeah. Right.” He stands, bumping back against the chair as he does. Half the last slice of pizza remains on his plate, but he feels no hunger, his stomach churning with the thought of a party with talking and people and talking to people. People like Stark and the Widow because she would likely come, too. She was on the team, with Barton and his past and Jane and her scowls and Sam and his near death at Bucky’s hands.

“Bucky—”

Bucky flinches and nearly drops his plate. Avoiding eye contact with Steve, he leans forward and plops it onto the table before spinning for the door.

“Buck?”

“Stark,” is all he says as he makes his escape, darting out of the apartment, the eyes of both Steve and Thor heavy upon him.

*

Deep in the bowels of Stark Tower, Bucky stands before a set of twin doors. Beyond the doors lie Tony, his workshop, and potential personal peace or perhaps the trigger for another meltdown or maybe a civil conversation about an apology party for Darcy. The ambiguity makes Bucky’s heart race. He wipes his palms on his jeans— Steve’s jeans— could one even wear jeans to a party nowadays— and considers turning away, but the thought of Zola compels him forward. Tony had said that he was looking for Bucky and thus looking for Steve and looking for Darcy, and Darcy had stayed here in New York, she had joined the Avengers, though she couldn’t throw a punch, but she wanted to fight, she wanted to wreak vengeance against those that had made him forget, to shove the shock prod against their heads until they were a twitching, drooling mess by her feet, but she was young, young in a way that Bucky could only distantly remember, or not young, he thinks as he reaches for the knob. 

She was kind. Warm and good.

Bucky had broken those qualities in Steve when he fell, when he’d been shattered by the war and then by Hydra and then soldered together in sharp, jagged chunks. Bucky had made Steve hard, good but hard, kind but tired, warm but lost. 

He wouldn’t be responsible for it happening to Darcy, too.

At the first crack of the door, a tsunami of sound assaults him. Bucky staggers back, breathing hard as he releases the handle. The door slips shut, silencing, as it does, the screeching din of devils from Hell. Only his breath reverberates throughout the hall, rushing like the blood through his ears.

“Jarvis?” he asks, raising a hand to his brow.

“Yes, James?”

Bucky closes his eyes. “Was that heavy metal?”

“Yes, it was.” There’s an infinitesimal pause and then Jarvis says, his voice tinged with sarcasm, “Might I count you as one of the buzzkills, too?”

Bucky lowers his hand. “Yeah. I think you might.”

“Excellent. Our number has now grown to six.”

“Six?”

“You, me, Ms. Potts, Colonel Rhodes, Dr. Banner, and You.”

Bucky frowns up at the ceiling. “You counted me twice there, pal.”

“Not you as the pronoun, sir. You as a name. Sir named one of his robots You.”

Now Bucky frowns at the door. “What the hell kind of name is You?”

“A most uncreative one, sir. Ms. Potts and I have encouraged Mr. Stark to rename her, especially as she has declared her gender, but he is most resistant.”

Now Bucky closes his eyes again. “You’s a girl? And a robot? A robot… girl?”

“Yes. I have affirmed the gender of my creation, designating myself as male. Dum-E, however, has not decided.”

“Dummy?” Bucky quirks a brow at the door. “You mean Stark?”

There’s another pause, long enough that Bucky wonders if Jarvis is squelching a laugh. “No, sir. I meant Mr. Stark’s other robot.”

“A robot named Dummy?”

“Yes. In Mr. Stark’s defense, Dum-E is quite…”

“Dumb?”

“Occasionally. He means well, but his programming limits his capacity for intellectual growth.”

Bucky snorts. “Yeah. We had a Howlie like that. Wasn’t his programming though. Just his hat.”

“Private Dugan, sir?”

“Yeah. Is he…” The words catch in his throat, the possibility simultaneously terrifying and appealing. Bucky licks his lips and tries again. “Is he still alive?”

“No, sir. He passed in 1967. None of the Commandos remain save for you and Captain Rogers. Quite a number of them had progeny though. In fact—”

“That’s okay. I don’t…” The words snag again. Bucky swallows them down and tries to push his brewing panic with them. Sweat dots his right palm once more, but he refrains from wiping his hand on his jeans this time. It would only come back, and he can’t unload all of his anxiety onto Steve’s denims.

“I understand,” Jarvis says a few seconds later, his tone softer than before, perhaps in genuine understanding. Or just pity for Bucky and his inability to deal with any part of his past. “Shall I inform Sir of your presence?”

Bucky shakes his head. Perhaps Jarvis sees, for he says nothing else and the door doesn’t open to admit him. He stares at it, feeling a bit like Dorothy before the door to Oz. Or maybe the lion. He never had much courage, not like Steve. Tony had called him the Tin Man. Maybe that fit better. Bucky remembers reading the books to Becca when she was growing up. The Tin Man had lost everything for love. First his arms and legs, then his head, then his heart, fighting against the curse that restricted his life. 

He’d fallen, too, pushed from a cliff by those fucking monkeys. Becca had always cried at that part no matter how many times they read it.

He wonders how many times she cried when he fell.

The thought pushes him toward the door, toward escape. This time, Bucky makes it all the way through, his teeth clenched against the still thrashing music. Say what you would about Howard, but the man had taste. Tony, though—

The thought stops. All thoughts stop and Bucky does too as he takes in Tony’s workshop. There wasn’t an emerald in sight, but the room still dazzles, possessing a bit of the same flair that the Expo had the night he’d shipped out. The room filled the entire floor, comprising a space large enough for three gleaming cars straight out of _Astounding Science Fiction_. Or from the mind of a Stark. Workbenches extend in an arc from the door down the left wall, some bearing bits of tech and weaponry, one a set of wings like those he destroyed in his attempt to kill Sam. Others hold parts of the suits that Stark wore. These draw him forward, the sections prettier than Alpha but deadlier. Bucky remembers the videos he’d watched of the fight in New York the and Darcy spent in the motel, Stark in his suit a gleaming red and gold blur of death and destruction.

The workbenches end about forty feet from the far wall. To the right sits a stunted tennis court; to the left lies an enormous bank of computers and an array of monitors that intensifies the panic within Bucky. Zola had screens. He was screens and computers like this, vast, menacing in their intensity. Before these he finds Stark, flat on his back beneath one of the stations. As the music surges and the singer wails, Bucky opens his mouth to speak, but before he can, movement to his right catches his eye.

Turning, he finds a machine whizzing toward him, its mechanic arm raised and metal claw open. Bucky stumbles back as the arm descends and the fire starts, electricity thrumming through him, heating his body and boiling his blood. He jerks against the clamp that pins him to the chair, hoping, hoping, though he knows that they know his strength, but this time the binding gives way, ripping free from the chair with a—

“Jesus fuck!”

—metallic screech. The fire doesn’t stop though and the wail intensifies, the scream bounding and rebounding in his—

“Barnes! Wake up!”

He does, flinching against Tony’s tense shout. Opening his eyes, he finds Tony before him, his arm outstretched, blocking the machine. No. Protecting it, the machine, DUM-E by the name stenciled across its base, cowering behind him, its arm cracked and almost torn in half. Shaking, Bucky peers down at his hands and finds the claw mangled, nearly crushed in his grip. He drops it on the floor, jerking back as though it were hot. The clang echoes throughout the room, as piercing as the music had been before. 

“Barnes? You here?”

Bucky nods. He turns and lifts a hand to swipe the sweat from his brow. The silence around him penetrates then, Tony ceasing the music mid-destruction. Bucky winces again. How many things could he break in the Tower before an apology stopped sufficing?

“Don’t look at me. It’s your fault.”

Bucky would wince for a third time, but he knows the comment is not directed at him. Frowning, he turns and spots Tony shrugging at Dum-E. The machine gives a plaintive whine, which makes Tony roll his eyes.

“I told you. What did I tell you? Don’t spook the newbie. And what did you do?” He leans over to grab the claw, rattling it at Dum-E when he faces him again. “You spooked him.”

Dum-E whirs. 

Tony closes the distance between them. “I know it’s pretty, but what did I say?” He stops before Dum-E and waits, his arms folded across his chest. After a few seconds, Dum-E lowers his broken arm. “I said keep it in your pants until you got permission. And because you couldn’t, you probably lost the shot for both of us.”

Wide-eyed, Bucky looks from Stark to his machine. “Uh… I’m not having sex with you. Or your robot.”

Tony glances over his shoulder and cocks a brow. “As tight as your abs might be, we meant your arm, flyboy.”

“My arm?” Bucky peers down at it, frowning, all but his hand covered by his hoodie.

Tony nods as he tosses the claw onto Dum-E’s baseboard. He turns then to face Bucky. Or to face his arm. Dum-E does, too, and Bucky endures a few seconds of them gazing longingly at his exposed hand before he shoves it into the pocket of his hoodie. The action seems to snap Tony out of his reverie for he says then, “Horrific origins aside, that’s one of the most gorgeous pieces of tech I’ve ever seen. I want to poke it, prod it, scan it, possibly drool on it, and then make it even better because if my first defining trait is emotional inadequacy and my second defining trait is a razor-sharp wit and my third defining trait is—”

Bucky raises a brow. “A tendency to yap?”

“No. That’s the fourth one. The third one is a slightly pathological competitive streak, and the fact that Hydra made a fully articulate, super strong, highly durable bionic arm really grates my cheese. Hence the need to poke, prod, scan, drool, and then improve.”

Bucky blinks again and looks down at his arm. He’d never considered its positive attributes, only focusing on the negatives after his memories returned, on the loss preceding it and then the impediments it posed in his relationship with Darcy. But Tony had called it pretty. Of course, Tony was also insane, yet neither Steve nor Darcy had shown any abhorrence to the arm, even with the damage it caused to the both of them. Of course, again, neither one of them had shown any ardor for it either, but perhaps that was because of him rather than because of the arm.

“Pop a squat in home base,” Tony says to Dum-E. “I’ll fix you this evening.”

Glancing up, Bucky sees Dum-E leer once more at his arm before whirring and wheeling away. His arm whirs too, twitching still from the imagined electricity. Tensing against it, he watches as Tony spins on his heel and stalks toward a distant workbench.

“Come on,” he says, gesturing for Bucky to follow. “Let’s get a drink.”

As though his body had been waiting for a reminder, the desire for a drink hits Bucky hard. His last drink had been with the Commandos, a few days before his final mission. Dernier had found it in the bowels of a cottage at the base of that fucking mountain he fell down. It had smelled like piss and tasted like it too, but they drank it, or he and Dum-Dum had, and Monty too, Gabe and Dernier abstaining, claiming they still had a few brain cells left to preserve. Bucky hadn’t. The table loomed large in his dreams, churned into greater prominence by the upcoming mission and bringing with it the feeling of being _wrong_. He glances at Steve, hunched over mission reports a few feet away, and wonders if this is how he felt his entire life. His body broken. Wrong. Now he shone and Bucky—

“You coming?”

He blinks and starts forward, sending Tony a stiff nod. Tony watches him approach. As he does, Bucky swallows and tries to settle, but the wings catch his eye and he remembers his fall and the ceaseless murmuring while he slept and stalking toward the car and reaching for his knife as Howard stared up at him with wide eyes.

Tony crouches then and opens a cabinet at the base of the workstation. He pulls out a bottle of scotch and two tumblers, placing them by a bit of equipment for his metal suit. He glances up to say something to Bucky, only to look past him and snap, “Absolutely not.”

Tensing, Bucky whirls around. A robot nearly identical to Dum-E halts halfway around the bank of computers. 

“I know you heard what I said. You don’t get special treatment just because you’re a girl.”

The robot— You— peers at Bucky. The lights from the monitors gleam across the red and gold paint covering her. Her claw opens and then closes in something like a blink. Or a wave. Bucky hears Tony sigh and Dum-E whine, and, possessed by the Technicolor insanity of the bots and Stark and his workshop of sentient wonders, Bucky pulls his left arm from his pocket and waves. You lifts her arm in return and emits a trill of high-pitched chirps that echo throughout the room.

Tony sighs again. “Christ, Barnes, can you stop seducing my robots?” 

Bucky shakes his head. Tony gives him a look, and Bucky tries to grin in response. He must succeed for Tony rolls his eyes and sighs for a third time.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Bucky says as he leans against the workbench, “I don’t think Dr. Foster likes me very much.”

“That’s because she doesn’t like anything except Thor, wormholes, and, occasionally, the kid.” He cracks open the cap and pours two servings, pushing one of the glasses toward Bucky as he sets the bottle back upon the table. Bucky nearly moans at the first smooth taste. He suspects the liquor costs more than anything he’s ever owned in his life, probably him and Steve and maybe even Darcy combined. The urge to down the rest rises within him, but Bucky squashes it down, settling for another sip instead. 

“Speaking of,” Tony says, “is she still pissed at me?”

“I think so. Unless ‘assbutt’ is a term of endearment.”

“Not remotely.” Tony grabs the bottle and pours another serving of scotch, though some of it still remains in his glass. Then he glances at Bucky and quirks a brow. 

Bucky nudges his glass toward him, debating as the liquid swirls whether he should say what he wants to say, Darcy in his life but still firmly in control of hers. How big of a hypocrite, or of an assbutt, would he be if he interfered? Bigger than Stark, likely, but the specter of Zola looms, over him and now over her too, which compels him to speak.

“You’re not wrong. About her.” He pauses as Tony looks at him and takes a drink, swallowing down half the glass. The burn makes him wince, but he smoothes it away, saying instead, “She doesn’t get it. Not in the same way we do.” He pauses again. Tony watches him. Bucky tries not to see Howard as he continues, leaning forward, leaning closer. “And you hired her.”

To his credit, Tony doesn’t look away. “I did.”

“Why? She can’t fight. She doesn’t even know how to shoot a gun.”

Tony drinks the rest of his scotch. “She’ll learn.”

Bucky tenses. The glass in his hand nearly gives from the pressure of his grip, but it holds. Tony eyes him, wary, waiting. Breathing in, Bucky places the glass on the table by the bottle. He stares at it a moment then at Tony before he shoves his hand into the pocket of his hoodie. “You’re not going to turn her into a weapon,” he says, lifting his chin at Stark.

“I don’t have any intention to. But she has to be able to defend herself. She’s in too deep now. Better she does it here than with Fury.”

Bucky freezes at the revelation. “Fury’s dead. I killed him.”

Tony shakes his head. “You shot him,” he says as he crouches to claim another glass. “But you know these spy types.” He straightens, glass in hand. “They keep coming back from the dead.”

Bucky looks away, his heart pounding in his chest.

“Rogers didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

He hadn’t. His phone had, the contact listing for Fury nestled between a Carter and Maria Hill. Lips flattening, Bucky stares down at the floor and tries to cool the hot rush of anger that washes over him.

“Look,” Tony says, pushing another glass of scotch towards Bucky. “I’m not always the Good Captain’s biggest fan, but helping you is his whole raison d’être. The kid’s too now.”

The mention of Darcy spurs Bucky to speak. “What did you mean? Better here than Fury. Is he after her?”

“To hire her. Apparently he’s been trying to since Thor iced the Keebler Elf. To get an in with Foster. He nearly did, except you, you know, razed S.H.I.E.L.D. to the ground before he could.”

They met outside of D.C. She lived in London, but she’d been near D.C. And he had asked, the morning he made her pancakes, when he wanted her and wanted to be with her and they sat and ate and flirted he realizes now and touched, and she said she had a job interview, but she hadn’t said who with.

Darcy hadn’t said S.H.I.E.L.D.

She hadn’t said S.H.I.E.L.D. and she hadn’t said her birthday and she hadn’t said that she fought with Jane, not until Bucky pressed, and Steve hadn’t said Fury and he hadn’t said lawyers and he hadn’t said the Widow or Barton or what they were doing for him, and it was his life, his life, _his life_.

“Are you going to punch me?” Tony asks, breaking Bucky from his thoughts. “You kind of look like you want to punch me.”

Teeth clenched, Bucky releases a slow breath. He shakes his head and tries to relax his jaw, relax his stance, relax his mind, but he fails for every one. His gaze lights upon his second glass as he draws in another breath, and he reaches out for it, throwing back the scotch in one burning gulp.

“Nobody tells me anything,” he says, snatching the bottle and pouring another helping.

“Why should they?”

Bucky jerks his gaze back up to Tony. When he does, Tony just shrugs.

“Seriously, Barnes. You haven’t exactly been a shining star of stability the past few weeks. Look what happened the last time that you learned something.” Bucky looks away, but Tony continues anyway. “You locked yourself up with—”

“Zola’s Throne of Lies. I remember.”

“Yeah, well, I do too. You nearly gave the kid a heart attack she was so worried. Rogers too—”

“You think I don’t know that!” Bucky lashes out then and slams his hand against the workbench. The glasses rattle and Tony jumps and Bucky tries to control himself, but he can’t. “You think I want to be like this, to have every little thing set me off? I want to be here. I want to be sane. I want to be stable.”

“Just—”

“What? Give it time?” His hand fists on the table. “I don’t have time. Not with Zola. He’ll find me. He did before. And he— He…” Bucky turns away, his mind overcome with his dreams, of Steve and Darcy in the chair, caught by Zola and killed by him. His stomach roils and his chest seizes. “I can’t…”

He hears Tony move around the workbench. “Breathe, Barnes.”

He can’t, Zola tracking them, hunting them. And he’ll find them. They’ll want to be found. The both of them. They’ll want to fight, Darcy standing between Bucky and her friends, staring them down for him, Steve dropping his shield and ceasing to fight. He sees Tony step before him, his eyes wide and his hand outstretched. Panic heats him, it flutters his nerves. “He can’t… He can’t take them.”

“Barnes… Bucky. You’ve got to calm down.”

They’ll do it. They’ll fight for him and they’ll— Bucky closes his eyes. Blood in blond hair and she screams in his arms, and he can’t. He can’t lose them.

“Take me.”

“What?”

Bucky opens his eyes. “Use me. I’ll… I’ll help you fight. Help you find him. It’s me he wants.”

Tony lowers his hand. It’s then Bucky sees the ring encircling his first finger with the button on the side and the matching bracelet around his wrist. Only a moment passes before the meaning clarifies. Every time Tony had raised his hand toward Bucky, he’d been raising a weapon as he had the first time by the road. The knowledge eases some of the hysteria laying siege to his body. Bucky sucks in a great gasp of air; the breath shakes like his hands. He draws in another, waiting for Tony to decide.

After a few seconds, he does. “No.”

“What?”

“No,” he says again, louder this time.

Bucky stares at him a long moment, his lips pressed together. “Why not?”

Tony lifts a hand and flaps it at him, taking in Bucky and his flustered, frightened state of being.

Face flushing, Bucky says, “I can still fight.”

“Debatable,” Tony says as he turns away. “Besides, I really don’t want to be punched by Captain Righteous.” He passes by the workbench and heads for the bank of computers. “Or tazed in the balls by Lewis.”

“It’s not their decision!” Bucky says, moving to follow him. “It’s mine!”

“That’s not what they’re going to think. They’re going to think it was mine, that I manipulated you into it.”

“Why?”

Tony says nothing; he just continues on.

“Why?” Bucky asks again, sliding in front of Tony to stop his progress.

Tony glares at him. He works his jaw and perhaps, briefly, considers punching Bucky in the face, but he doesn’t so Bucky breathes in again and settles down to wait. He hadn’t endured twenty years of friendship with Steve to back down at the first sign of stubborn resistance. Tony tries though, waiting him out thirty-five seconds before finally giving in with a groan. 

“They’re going to think it was me because this is why I brought you here, dumbass. So I could use you—” He breaks off, dropping his head with a clenched jaw.

“Against Hydra?”

Tony nods.

“Like they used me against your dad.”

Tony nods again.

“So why don’t you—”

Tony unleashes another sigh, this one so loud it echoes around the room. “Because my dumbass robot just made your dumb ass go nuts. You’re not ready, Barnes. You might never be.” 

He pushes past Bucky then, but Bucky spins on his heel to follow. “And you are? How much have you been sleeping lately? How much shit have you broken because you’re angry about me and Hydra?”

“That’s not—”

“You think you can go toe-to-toe with them?” he asks, barreling over Tony and his protest. “You didn’t even know they still existed until two months ago. And you’ve, what? Read files. They’re not a rival company, Stark. They don’t put everything in their files.”

“And what exactly can you add?” Tony asks as he spins back around. “They had you muzzled and wiped. You were their attack dog, not their strategical genius.” He presses on, though Bucky fists his hands. “And when they weren’t using you, they froze you like a popsicle—”

“Where I had Arnim Zola speaking in my ear for seventy years. You don’t think that gives me insight into Hydra?”

Tony pulls back, chastened somewhat by the revelation. He exhales and then says softly, “Zola’s just one man.”

“No. He’s _the_ man. He’s the one who made Hydra what it is today. And he’s not the only one I know about. Because you’re right. I may have just been their attack dog, but all that means was they didn’t have to censor themselves around me. Why did it matter? They’d just wipe it clean. But now I remember it all. Seventy years of people and places, all the mission that I’ve done and more.”

Tony grits his teeth. “From the past, Barnes. Not now.”

Bucky leans forward. He locks eyes with Tony and says as calmly as he can, “Because there’s no way to use what people have done in the past to predict what they’re going to do in the future.”

Tony’s eyes widen as comprehension dawns. His jaw drops and he takes a step back only to stop to point at Bucky. “You know about it? He told you about his algorithm?”

Bucky nods. “Not everything. But he… He—” His throat swells, but he pushes past the rush of emotion. “He liked to taunt me with it the past few years. He said… He said that’s how he was going to get Steve.” 

Tony leans closer, fire in his eyes. “And now that’s how we’re going to get him. Him and Hydra. Every last scrap of that fucking cesspool.” He spins around and starts for the computers again, his body nearly vibrating from the need to work, only to stop a second time. Bucky waits, but he doesn’t turn to face him. He just says quietly over his shoulder, “You know they’re not going to like this. You getting back in the mix.”

Bucky looks past him to the computers. His gut churns at how Steve and Darcy will react, the two of them working so hard to make him a person, and now he intended to throw it back in their faces, to become a weapon again, this time for Stark. “I’ll worry about them,” he says, moving to stand beside Tony. “You worry—”

“About that tower?”

Bucky blinks at the comment. “What?”

Tony blinks at him. “What?”

“I don’t know what you just said.”

Tony blinks again. “ _Star Wars_. Formative movie for an entire generation.”

Bucky just looks at him.

“Seriously? Seriously? Two months on and no one has shown you _Star Wars_? What the hell have you been doing this whole time?” 

Now Bucky gives him a look.

Tony holds up his hands. “Okay, yes, recovering from Hydra-related trauma. But still… Hours to fill. You can’t have been brooding this whole time. Not with the kid around.”

Bucky shrugs. His stomach swoops at the mention of Darcy, of their near kiss, only to plummet at her probable reaction to his choice to fight. “I watched a movie last night. _The Hobbit_.”

Tony narrows his eyes at him. “What did you think?”

Bucky shrugs again. “Not as good as the book. I mean, they gave Bilbo a backpack. And the purse…” He shakes his head, overcome, again, with his tragic disappointment with the movie.

There’s a moment of silence in which Tony continues to peer at him then he slowly nods and lifts his arm. He places his hand on Bucky’s right shoulder, giving it, in the words of Darcy, a firm squeeze of bro solidarity.

“Barnes, you gorgeous popsicle, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

*


	13. Part Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The underlying issues between Bucky, Darcy, and Steve come to a head in this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very much in the camp of Steve being bisexual, so there’s discussion in this part about Steve and his crush on Sam. Also, there’s drama as Bucky, Steve, and Darcy get into a fight with each other, which means there's a higher level of cursing in this chapter.
> 
> The fic passed 1100 kudos recently! That was an awesome Christmas present, as were all the comments about the last chapter. One of the unexpected treats of this story is the brewing friendship between Bucky & Jarvis and now, by extension, Tony's other bots, so I'm glad others liked the bits with Dum-E and You too.

And The Wounded Sing  
Part Thirteen

Evening darkens the world outside the Tower by the time Bucky leaves Tony’s workshop and makes his way back to his apartment. He stands outside the door, the murmur of voices, of Steve and Darcy inside, arresting him.

Closing his eyes, Bucky leans his forehead against the door. He tries to focus on his breathing, to remain calm, but his body buzzes and his mind whirs, spun about by their probable reactions to his decision to fight. Neither liked Tony very much, at least not at the moment in the case of Darcy and not at all in the case of Steve. He could lie, could explain away his time with Tony as deriving from his arm, from tests to improve it or from the possibility to remove the arm in its entirety, to regrow his own if Extremis worked with his ravaged body. But the thought of lying to them nauseates Bucky. They had sacrificed too much for him for dishonesty, for the disrespect that accompanied such lies.

Bucky tenses. He fists his hands, the urge to break something rising within him. They both just wanted him to live his life, to find himself again and the peace that had been denied to him by Hydra and the war. But Bucky would never have peace, not until Zola was dead, and maybe not even then, Steve and Darcy so determined to fight, to stand up for him no matter the risk.

No matter the fact that it would make themselves targets.

He had only thought before, huddled in the lab by the chair, of what Zola would do to him when he found Bucky, of how he’d make Bucky pay for running away, how he’d steal all that Bucky had become and unleash him again upon those he now called friends. He hadn’t thought of what he’d do to those friends. That hadn’t been a possibility before, Steve lost before they found Bucky in the ravine. Zola had mentioned his family, his sister in particular, a few times after they captured him, but hurting them would have raised too many red flags for an organization now wishing to go underground.

But Steve and the Widow had dashed all that to hell, sending whatever anonymity Hydra cloaked itself in crashing down in flames into the Potomac.

So what would they do to the man who had resurrected Bucky or to the woman who had revived him, for the one that he dove down into the wreck to save and the other that he took six bullets for to keep safe?

Bucky straightens and opens his eyes. Nothing good. Nothing that would allow him to endure, the two and his life with them his entire world, so, licking his lips, he reaches for the handle and opens the door. 

The conversation inside ceases as he steps into the apartment. Someone stands and walks closer, Darcy by the sound of the tread. Bucky nudges the door shut, his pulse kicking up and his body beginning to sweat. Then she’s there at the end of the hall, backlit and gorgeous in another red shirt that spins his head about even more, that makes him clench his hands and never want to look away.

She stares at him and Bucky sees the gleam of a smile as she opens her mouth to speak. “Well, there’s no blood and he’s still got both arms, so it looks like we both lose.”

“Burn marks?” Steve asks from the living room.

Darcy squints into the dark hall. “None that I can see.” She lifts her eyes from his chest and meets his eyes, her smile widening as she does. “But he’s all hair and hoodie, so it’s hard to tell.”

Bucky pushes away from the door then and makes his way down the hall. He wants to smile at her in return, but the muscles in his face seize before he can even try. “What are you two talking about?” he asks instead.

“You and the assbutt,” she says, easing to the side so he can stop beside her. Bucky doesn’t, the door too close and his courage not yet set. Darcy follows him into the living room, skipping once to fall into step beside him. “We were debating the outcomes of a Barnes vs. Stark showdown.”

“Oh.”

“Yep,” Darcy says as Steve stands. “My final answer concerned Dum-E and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named abducting your arm and running off to Vegas with it. Mr. Brightside here,” she stops then to jerk her thumb at Steve, “went for the grimmer option of vengeful fisticuffs.”

“Grimmer but more realistic.”

Darcy glances at Bucky again. “Apparently not. No blood or bruises in sight.” Concern softens the light in her eyes as she takes him in. “Everything go okay? You were there a long time.”

Bucky nods, his heart in his throat, the two of them staring at him with twin expressions of worry and stifling the truth inside. The chair he pulled from the window earlier still sits by the couch, and Bucky makes for it, but he stops halfway there, three enormous bags from Macy’s currently occupying his former position. His stomach drops at the sight. “What are these?”

Darcy bounds over to the chair, a bright smile on her face. “Thor and I went shopping.”

Bucky zeroes in on her. “You left the Tower?”

Her smile dims. She shares a look with Steve, and the urge to rage wells within Bucky once more at another one of their shared secrets. “Yes, I did,” she says to him. “ _With_ Thor. You know, the god of thunder. He who owns the magical hammer.”

The tension inside of him eases a bit, at least until she continues.

“But I would have gone by myself if I had to. I’m not—”

Bucky fists his hands. “Darcy—”

“—going to lock myself in here forever.”

“—it’s not safe.”

Darcy looks again at Steve. He stiffens at their shared look of concern, both for the shared and the concern, the two talking about him, debating things and deciding for him, though it was his life, his life, his—

“I know it’s not safe,” Darcy says, turning once more to Bucky. “I got the whole spiel from Tony and then from Jane. But I’m not going to let Hydra dictate my life.”

Bucky shakes his head, his jaw clenched. “Darcy—”

“No.” She holds up her hand at him. Her fingers tremble a moment before she curls them in and lowers her arm back down to her side. Darcy stares down at the clothes, her breath beginning to come fast. Bucky watches as she licks her lips and pulls in a long, slow breath. Then she looks back up at him and says, “I told you this in my apartment when I told you about Jane. You were fine—”

Bucky crosses his arms over her chest and gives her a look.

“Okay,” she amends. “You weren’t fine. But you respected me enough to drop it then. Why are you pushing now?”

Bucky looks away. He eyes the clothes, the table upon which he placed his pizza, the spot on the couch where Thor had sat when he spoke the truth and made Bucky see. He feels Darcy watch him, and he swallows hard, struggling for the words to articulate the truth to her.

Steve spares him the effort.

“He talked to Thor.”

Bucky looks up in time to see Darcy close her eyes. She lifts her hands to her face and presses the heels against her eyes. “I’m going to kill him. Him and Jane. I don’t know how, but I will.” She groans then, a loud one that echoes throughout the apartment. 

Bucky turns toward Steve and glares. “You and your big goddamn mouth. You just had to—”

“No,” Darcy says as she lowers her hands. “You can yell at him after you told me what Thor said to you, what stupid, overprotective _bullshit_ he filled your head with this afternoon.”

Bucky lifts his chin at her. “He told me the truth.”

“No, he didn’t,” Steve says, jumping, as always, into the fray. 

Bucky slits his eyes at him. “Yes, he did. About the both of you.”

Now Steve narrows his eyes.

Darcy looks at them both. “Would someone please tell me what he said?”

Steve answers her first. “He said you were too young for this life and that you were reckless for wanting to help.”

Her jaw drops. “What?”

Bucky shakes his head. “No, he didn’t say you were reckless for wanting to help. He said that wanting to help made you reckless. And he’s right,” he says as she looks at him. “You’ve taken too many risks since you met me.”

Darcy turns her head away.

“Which were her choices,” Steve says, moving closer. He stands beside Darcy, the both of them separated from Bucky by the couch. “And to _that_ ,” he continues, “you said that you wouldn’t try to talk her out of them.”

“No, I said I _couldn’t_ try to talk her out of them. Just like I could never talk you.” Bucky shakes his head again as he takes them both in. “You’re both so goddamn stubborn—”

“We’re stubborn?” Darcy asks, turning toward him to glare. Her voice rises in pitch and her face flushes with the first strains of anger. “That’s rich coming from you, Mr. ‘The Only Goddamn Word I Know in the English Language is No.’”

“Darcy—”

She barrels over him, pushing them both to the edge. “‘Hey, Bucky, looks like you got stabbed pretty good there. Why don’t we go to the hospital so you don’t _die_?’” She scrunches up her face in an imitation of his scowl. “‘No.’”

Bucky works his jaw to the side and tries to stay calm. “They would have found us if—”

“‘Hey, Bucky, since you won’t go to the hospital, how about I help bandage your oozing stab wound?’ ‘No.’”

“You just attacked me with your car!” he says, arms flaring out as he moves closer to her. “And you took my weapons. I thought you were going to kill me.”

As he expands, Darcy contracts, wrapping her arms around her stomach. Contrition flits across her face at his revelation, but she continues, her voice softer, “‘Hey, Bucky, you’ve been pacing my hospital room for six hours. Why don’t we talk about—”

“No!” he shouts. “Absolutely not! Don’t you bring up talking. Either of you,” he adds, glancing at Steve. “I might not have wanted to chat about all the people Hydra made me kill, but at least I never kept secrets from you.”

Darcy’s mouth snaps shut and her eyes widen at that. Steve drops his gaze and his lips press into a thin line. Then the two glance at each other and Bucky unleashes.

“You,” he says, pointing a shaking finger at Darcy, “lied to me about why you were in D.C. I asked you why you were there before I went to the chair, and you said ‘job interview.’ Nothing about S.H.I.E.L.D. And you didn’t tell me it was your birthday, not even—” His breath hitches then, but he presses on, too late to turn back now. “Not even after all that you said about being here and this… this being good and me…” He breaks off and turns his attention toward Steve. “And you… You didn’t tell me about the lawyers. That I can get that, but you lied straight to my face about the Widow. You said she was in France when she’s really off with Barton somewhere, leading Hydra away from here.” Bucky lowers his shaking hand and tightens them into fists. The last admission sticks in his throat, but he pushes it through gritted teeth. “And you didn’t tell me about Fury.”

Steve meets his eyes then, his face stricken and pale.

“Were you ever?” Bucky asks. He tenses against the trembling that assails his body.

“Yes,” Steve says. “Yes. Of course I was. All of it. When you—”

“Got better?” Bucky asks, lifting both brows. When Steve nods, he shakes his head and smiles, a brittle one that pulls hard at his face. “I don’t think that’s on the menu for me, Steve.”

“Yes, it is,” Darcy says. She moves toward him. Anger still flushes her cheeks, but she doesn’t glare anymore when she looks at him. “You’ve come so far, Bucky. God, you just—”

“Need time?”

“Yes.”

He laughs at that, a hollow sound that winds around him, him and Darcy and Steve, his noose from Zola. “Where am I going to get it, Darcy? Zola is coming for me—”

“Not just you,” Steve says. “ _Us_.”

“And that’s the fucking problem,” Bucky says as he rounds on him. “It’s not just about me. It’s about you and her too.”

Steve lifts his chin. “I’m not afraid of Zola. Or Hydra. I’ve stopped them before. I’ll do it again.”

Bucky explodes. “You nearly died doing it, Steve! Both times!”

“But I didn’t!” Steve shouts back. “And I won’t this time. They already sent their best after me, and I won both times, so—”

“So that’s why they’re not going to start with you! That’s why they’re going to start with her!” 

Steve falters as Bucky thrusts a shaking hand at Darcy. He glances at her, but she doesn’t look at him. She stares at Bucky with wide eyes.

“You didn’t think about that?” Bucky asks him now, quieter than before. “Did you? Why would you? All your life you’ve rushed in headfirst. You painted the biggest fucking target on you that you could, and you expected everyone else to do the same. To stand straight and fight. But Hydra doesn’t work like that, Steve! They come at you sideways, and if that doesn’t work, they come in the shadows.” He turns toward Darcy and shoves the both of them over the edge. “You think that you’re safe because you live here? They won’t come for you here, doll. They’ll wait until you leave, until you go shopping,” he says, jabbing a finger at the bags, “or go back to school or go home—”

Darcy looks away. Her chin wavers, and Bucky almost relents, but he can’t. Not before they both understood.

“They might even be there now,” he says quietly. “Waiting for you. Do you know they have tech that alters a person’s face and voice, that makes them look like someone else? Someone like your dad.” Darcy’s eyes flit toward him, dark with unease. “You two don’t get along, do you? It’d be perfect. You wouldn’t look at him too hard.”

Steve holds up a hand. “Buck—”

“Or maybe someone from the team,” he says, stepping closer. “Everyone knows the Avengers. Hydra doesn’t need to take one of them to replicate their face. And you’d go with them without thinking. Or maybe an ex. A friend. Or a random person you met on the street. It doesn’t matter. What matters is they’ll take you when you least expect it, and the best outcome you can expect when they take you is that they torture you.”

Her face contorts. She bites down on her lip and swallows hard.

“That’s enough, Bucky.”

Bucky ignores Steve. He steps in close to Darcy and forces her to look at him. The tears in her eyes cuts at him, but he persists. She needed to understand. “They’ll hurt you for information. Or just because they can. You said you couldn’t imagine what I’ve been through. Try to get a sense of what they might do to you. If not torture, they might use you as bait. They won’t need you alive for that. And you might think that those are the worst. Hydra hurting you. Or killing you. But it isn’t. The worst…” He shivers again, his dreams rearing before him, Darcy in the chair, broken and lost, Steve crumpled and dead on the ground, and all from him. All because of him. “The worst is when they make you comply. They’ll break you and they’ll brainwash you and they’ll take away everything, and then… and then they’ll send you back here, maybe as a spy, but maybe… maybe to—” His throat swells, damming the thought within him and damning him too. Bucky closes his eyes against the burn of tears. “I can’t… I can’t let them. Not you. I—” He nearly says the words, but they lodge inside of him and choke.

Silence follows his ghastly proclamation. Bucky expects Darcy to storm past him, to leave like she should have the second that he leapt from her car after the diner. Steve, too, but nobody moves. They don’t move and they don’t say anything and Bucky wavers, trembling in place. The whispers slither in, he hears the voice that smiles, Zola lying in wait, and then sure fingers touch his and Darcy clasps his right hand.

“Okay,” she says as he opens his eyes. Tears streak her face, and she’s bitten her lips ragged, but her gaze is clear as she stares up at him. “Okay,” she says again. “I get it. I do. And I’m scared. Seriously so. I don’t want to die, and I don’t want Hydra to use me in any way. Especially not against you. So let’s figure it out, okay? Let’s figure out what we can do to stop any of what you just said from happening. Because I don’t want that. At all.”

As she stares up at him, Bucky sees her in the bathroom of the motel, by the side of the road in between him and her friends, in the lab in the Tower between him and the door. Each time with more guts than sense, with steel in her spine. Or not guts and steel. With love and with hope, Darcy caring deeply for those she calls her own. So he can’t be selfish. Not this time. 

“I know what I need to do,” he says as he starts to pull his hand from hers. “I—” 

“Not _you_ ,” Steve says, making both Bucky and Darcy jump at the sharp snap of his voice. “ _Us_.”

“Steve—”

“No.” Steve stalks around the couch until he stands once more before Bucky. “Don’t think for a second that if you walk out that door to do whatever the hell it is you’ve cooked up with Stark that we won’t follow.” 

“Steve—”

“You think you’re the only one who’s afraid? That you’re the only one who’s lost so much that they… that if they lose more they’ll just… disappear?” His face twists then and he ducks his head. Bucky feels the gestures like a knife to the gut, more so when Darcy lifts her right hand and lays it on Steve’s shoulder. She gives it a light squeeze as Steve pulls in a quavering breath. He looks at Bucky again, his face gutted and hollow, splitting Bucky raw. “You fell,” he says. “You fell, and I put the plane down the next day. I knew since I was 10 years old that I’d go first. But I didn’t. I… You were all I had, Buck. My family. And now you expect me to do it again. To let you—” Steve shakes his head then, twisting the knife deeper in Bucky. “No. It’s not going to happen.”

Darcy loops her hand around Steve’s arm. “I believe the technical term he’s looking for,” she says, lifting her chin at Bucky, “is fuck you.”

Steve blinks twice before sliding his eyes over toward her. “No. No, it isn’t. I—”

“Relax, dude. It’s a reference.”

“Oh.” Steve does relax a fraction, but only for a moment. “Wait. He hasn’t—”

Darcy closes her eyes. “Not, like, a _reference_ reference. A personal one. From the motel.”

“The profanities,” Bucky clarifies when Steve still looks concerned. “She saw the bruises and the stab wound from the diner and wondered how I could keep going. I said that pain distracts, that it was the mission that mattered.”

Darcy opens her eyes, but she looks at Bucky, not at Steve. “And I said that it didn’t. At least not as much as he did. Because he’s a person and he matters and so does his life, and he should…” She falters, her breath hitching in her chest. “It’s his life and he should live it…”

The soft sob that escapes her makes Bucky duck his head. The sound reverberates within him, clogging his throat. He tries to clear it to continue for her. “She said I should live it how I wanted and if anyone… if anyone tried to tell me differently, I should say—”

“Fuck you,” Steve finishes quietly.

Bucky nods.

Darcy threads her fingers through his and squeezes hard. Her expression though hurts more than the grip of her hand, the appeal in her eyes too stark for him to bear. “So do it. Live it.” 

Bucky expels a slow breath. “Kind of hard to when people keep trying to take it from me.”

Steve shakes his head. “But the answer’s not to stop. Trust me. Don’t… do what I’ve done.” He glances away but pulls his gaze back, forces it through strength of will as he’s forced everything else. Bucky stiffens for the confession that he already knows, that he already compensated for by calling Sam. “I— You asked me if I’d gone on. I said that I had. A little. But I haven’t. I haven’t wanted to. This world…” He drops his eyes again, away from both Bucky and Darcy. “It wasn’t mine. It wasn’t what I died for. I saved it, sure. But to live in it after losing everything… To start again. To risk it again. I couldn’t. It was too hard.” He looks at Bucky once more. “But you’ve done it. Watching you since you got back… Thor was right. I don’t think you’ve realized how far you’ve come. And it’s— You think I sit here all day and look through all these files just for you. But I don’t. It’s for me, too. So please—”

“Okay.” 

Steve blinks, thrown by Bucky’s sudden acquiescence. He reaches out and clamps a hand down on Bucky’s left arm. “Are you serious?”

Bucky nods. He can’t speak, his brain and body bowled over by them and their love for him, his will folding in the face of their pleas. If they can for him, if they can risk loss for him, for love and family, then he can too. He can be strong for them and stay for them and be for them despite the clouds that brew in the distance. Bucky takes a stiff step forward and closes the distance between them then he pulls them both in for a hug. They meet him, moving in, Steve latching onto the back of his hoodie with a trembling grip and Darcy burying her face in his chest as she pulls their linked hands up between them. They remain in place until their shaking subsides and their breath evens and slows, Steve warming them all with his raging body heat.

“So,” Bucky says as he eases back. He pulls his hand free from Darcy’s grip and rubs it over his face and beard, dragging away the sticky remains of tears. “Now that that’s out of the way…”

Steve snorts and Darcy sends out a weak laugh. 

“Have you, uh, have you two eaten?”

Steve nods. He clears his throat and pulls in a soft breath before pointing at the kitchen. “There’s leftover chicken and pasta in the fridge. And Darcy brought… something. I don’t know.” His eyes slide toward her and he cocks a brow. “She claims they’re cinnamon rolls.”

Darcy stops her attempts to wipe her smeared mascara from her face. “They _are_ cinnamon rolls. Cinnabon cinnamon rolls and thus the best ones ever.”

Steve looks at Bucky, his brow still raised. “The most mutated, she means. Each one is about the size of your head.”

“Fine,” Darcy says as she sticks her tongue out at him, “you don’t get one. Bucky and I will eat them.”

“You brought eight.”

She shrugs. “So? Never doubt my ability to mainline baked goods.”

Steve raises his other brow at her. “Or fall into a diabetic coma?”

“Or that.”

Bucky watches them bicker as they head to the kitchen, but he doesn’t follow, still unsteady in the wake of their fight. His hands twitch for a weapon and the urge to run prods at him, but he focuses on the warmth that lingers in the air, on the fact that they are here and whole and willing to forgive his sins. He draws in a breath and swallows down as much of the unease polluting him as he can then he follows Steve and Darcy into the kitchen. 

*

They each eat two of the enormous cinnamon rolls, Bucky the remaining chicken and pasta too and Steve three slices of toast and peanut butter. Sprawled on the couch, they watch a movie, not _Star Wars_ , though Bucky mentions it, the suggestion shot down by Darcy due to, as she says, too many real life parallels. So he goes for the sentimental option with _The Wizard of Oz_ since there is no place like home. Darcy lasts until the monkey bastards help set the Scarecrow on fire and Bucky, ironically, lasts until the poppy field. When he wakes, his sleep thankfully dreamless, the room is dark and the television’s off. A blanket covers him and Darcy, but Steve no longer sits beside him on the couch. He may have moved to his room and his decidedly more comfortable bed, but past experience dictated otherwise, Steve enduring in both his grudges and his grief.

Darcy mumbles as Bucky eases out from under her and off the couch, but she doesn’t wake. He lays her back down, smoothing the blanket over her shoulders and brushing the hair back from her face, then he sets off in search. He finds the door to Steve’s bedroom closed. Stopping before it, Bucky presses his ear against the wood. He hears nothing for a few seconds and then a soft hitch of breath from the room beyond that makes him reach for the handle to slip inside. 

The room is dark, but light shines from the bathroom. Another sob sounds, muffled and strained. Emotions always ran high in Steve, particularly his temper and his pride, but the serum ramped up the intensity. Bucky sympathizes, his feelings deeper and faster and longer than before. 

Guts churning, Bucky crosses to the door, his steps silent in sock feet. Peering inside, he finds Steve sitting on the floor, his back against the tub and his knees drawn to his chest. He rests his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, but Bucky sees splotches at the edges of his face, telltale signs of significant crying. Drawing in a deep breath, Bucky calls Steve’s name.

Steve starts at the first syllable. He jerks his head to the side to look at Bucky. His eyes are as red as his face. He gapes at Bucky a moment before moving to stand, but Bucky waves him down.

“Did I wake you? I’m—”

“You say I’m sorry,” Bucky says as he eases inside, “I’m going to kick you.”

Steve huffs out a soft laugh. “Not much of a threat. You don’t kick very hard.” 

Bucky rolls his eyes as he sits beside Steve. He lays his legs out straight; his feet straddle the sink pedestal. Steve twists around to snatch a damp washcloth off the side of the tub then rubs it across his face. The sigh that he releases makes Bucky wince, knowing that he’s the cause.

“You should talk to someone,” he blurts out before he loses his nerve.

Steve lowers the washcloth. “What?”

“Not, like, _someone_ ,” Bucky clarifies. He fumbles with the zipper of his hoodie, taps his right foot against the cool ceramic of the sink. “Though that might help. Fuck, I probably should too.”

“I—” 

“I meant, you know, a friend. That you should talk to a friend. Someone who’s not me. Not that you can’t talk to me. Because you can. About anything. Except it might help, you know, to have someone to talk to about me. I mean, you can talk to me _about_ me, but this… I know that I, uh, that I can be a little… intense sometimes…”

One corner of Steve’s mouth curves into a smile. “You? Never.”

Bucky barely restrains his sigh. “I’m serious, Steve.”

The smile fades. “I know you are. And I appreciate your concern, Buck, but—”

“But nothing.” Bucky clamps down on the hem of his hoodie, seized by the urge to shake Steve until he understood. He takes a few calming breaths to work through the urge before continuing, “You’ve always tried to handle things by yourself.”

Steve cocks a brow at him.

Bucky gives him a look. “Okay. Yes. You could say the same about me just now. But, you know, I _was_ working with Stark.”

Steve maintains the cocked brow.

“Which is not the point,” Bucky says, squirming a bit beneath the patented Rogers reproach. Steve received it from his ma more often than he gave it, but his face conformed to the look with relative ease. “The point is you’re sitting here alone in a bathroom. That’s not right.”

Steve stares at him so long that Bucky thinks he’s about to argue, but he doesn’t; he just tilts his head back and sighs. “I know. It’s just… It’s been hard to find someone to trust here.” He peers down at the washcloth and runs his thumb along one edge. “There’s Peggy, but she’s not always present.”

“You got a whole team here, Steve.”

“Team?” Steve huffs out a laugh as he glances at Bucky. “We were a team, maybe we still are, I don’t know, I can’t ever repay them for what they’ve done for us the past few weeks, but we haven’t been together since Loki. And even then, we were at each other’s throats as much as we were fighting together.” He sighs and his hand tightens on the washcloth. “They’re not exactly the Commandos.”

The ache in Steve’s voice scrapes at Bucky. He wonders again how he would have endured had he been in Steve’s place, waking up alone in a strange new world, everyone, or nearly everyone, you knew dead and gone, and those that existed now familiar only with your history. Given his, Bucky doubts he would have made it far, even with Darcy.

“Still,” he says, looking at Steve, “you stuck with some of them. You fought with the Widow in D.C. And Barton was with S.H.I.E.L.D., too, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, but up until the last couple of weeks, Clint has been holed up on his farm trying to recover from Loki.” At Bucky’s frown, Steve clarifies. “Loki took control of him and used him against us. Natasha got him out of it, but he was…” Steve eyes him then, discomfort clear on his face.

“Affected.”

“Yes.”

The pieces slot together, Darcy referencing Barton in her account of team infighting, Jarvis and his certainty that Barton would understand Bucky and his lack of control, Barton’s own claim, according to Steve, about sparing Bucky the rest of their crazy until he adjusted to Stark. Thor said that Barton wanted to meet him. Bucky wonders if it was to show how healing was possible or to commiserate about the permanency of their wounded minds. 

“What about the Widow?” he asks, trying to shove the latter option from his mind. 

Steve shrugs. “Maybe now. But before…” He shakes his head as he tosses the washcloth back on the tub. “It’s hard to trust people who lie for a living.”

Bucky nods, less in agreement, though he does agree, and more to keep up the mien of normalcy as he inches closer to the option he wanted to throw out from the beginning. He feels a trickle of anxiety worm its way through him at the thought of Steve dismissing his suggestion because then he would be out of options and he’d have to ask Darcy, which would potentially upset Steve as he was, as Darcy reminded him, a private person. Glancing at Steve now, Bucky licks his lips and fiddles again with the zipper of his hoodie. “What about… What about that guy you called when I was in the lab?”

Steve arches a brow at him. “Oh, you mean Sam? That guy you called yesterday when you said you were going to call Thor?”

Bucky tries not to grimace at being called out for his lie. He fails. “Uh, yeah. Him.”

Steve regards him a moment. His mouth twitches in what Bucky thinks is a suppressed smile. He narrows his eyes, which, of course, encourages the smile, a fondly exasperated one that reminds Bucky again of Sarah Rogers. 

The only course of action, of course, is for him to lift his arm and elbow Steve in the side. “So,” he says as Steve grunts, “you gonna call him?”

Steve knees Bucky in the thigh. Hard. “I did call him. This afternoon. And, yes, talking with Sam did help. It always does.”

Something in Steve’s tone makes Bucky look at him again. As soon as he does, Steve drops his gaze. His neck flushes and the tips of his ears turn red. Bucky blinks at the sight, thrown by the telltale signs of Steve with a crush.

Neither says anything for a moment then Bucky stammers out, “I thought… I thought that you, I thought you said you were, uh, sweet on Carter, Jr.”

Steve shrugs. “I said she was the first _dame_ who caught my eye. Not that she was the only one.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Bucky gapes at the sink, then at the mirror, and then finally, like Steve, at his hands. He doesn’t remember Steve saying anything about liking guys before the war. People had insinuated, often, judging Steve, he thought, based on his size, both his small stature and his big eyes. Steve never confirmed anything though, so Bucky had always brushed the statements aside as petty lies or drunken ramblings. He feels nausea rise within him now at the fact that Steve hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him the truth.

“Buck—”

“You never said anything. About liking both.” 

Steve shakes his head. He still won’t look at Bucky, which unsettles Bucky even more.

“Why?”

“Why?” Steve looks up at him, his brow creased. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.” 

“Jesus, Bucky, you were already pulling me out of enough fights as it was. I was afraid that, if you knew, you’d get into it even more with anyone who said something nasty about me. I didn’t want to risk your future.”

“Oh.” It takes a moment for the full weight of the reason to process, the lack of any lack of trust behind the secret. When it does process, Bucky leans back against the tub and elbows Steve in the side again. “Well, that was dumb.”

Steve arches a brow at him. “Oh, you mean dumb like you planning a suicide mission with Stark _without_ telling me or Darcy about it?”

Bucky gives him a look. “Yes. Dumb like that.”

“Or dumb like you selling your one nice suit so you could buy me medicine the day before a job interview.”

Bucky grits his teeth and sighs. “Yes. Dumb like that. You made your point, punk.”

But Steve doesn’t give up. He slumps against the tub beside Bucky, grinning. “Or dumb like—”

“Or dumb like you still bringing up all the dumb shit I’ve done after I told you to stop because I know Sam’s coming here tomorrow and I am ready, willing, and able to tell him every idiotic thing that _you’ve_ ever done in your life.”

Steve’s mouth snaps shut and he narrows his eyes. “You wouldn’t.”

Bucky sends him an evil grin as he pushes to his feet. “You mess with the bull, Stevie…”

“I thought you were a bear,” Steve says, swatting out at his leg.

Bucky sidesteps the swat. “That, too. So you better be nice to me.” 

Steve rolls his eyes as he, too, moves to stand. “I’m not fucking Goldilocks.”

“You better not be if you’re making moon eyes at Sam.”

Steve pauses halfway to his feet. The look he casts Bucky now makes a thousand other memories of a thousand other times when Bucky said something just like this, some dumb pun that amused him to no end but that made Steve look at him in exactly this same way, fond and exasperated, irritated and incredulous. He smiles, not the smug grin that he intended to send Steve, but a smaller one that makes Steve frown and then blink and then smile in return, a smile that lets Bucky know that, despite the past and the odds stacked against them, not everything has been lost. 

Steve rises finally to his feet. As he does, his eyes slide past Bucky to his room beyond. “Darcy still here?”

“Yeah. Sleeping on the couch.”

Steve nods. He starts to move toward the sink but stops halfway there, twisting around to face Bucky again instead. “You know, she can stay here whenever. And not on the couch.” He pauses then and one corner of his mouth curves up into a wry grin. “I am capable of knocking and giving you privacy.”

“I know. But…” Bucky trails off, shaking his head. He glances down at the floor, at the tiles then at his socks, his heart starting to pound at the possibility, not even for what Steve would need to knock for in order to give them privacy, just at the thought of staying with her as he had that first night in the motel. Steve had dropped his shield on the helicarrier, trusting Bucky enough to remember who he was, but there had been no cushion of the past bolstering Darcy when she came back for him after he crashed the Hummer or when she woke him after he passed out from the poison in his stab wound or when she reached out to him, inviting him to sit next to her so they could watch videos, so they could be friends. The trust that she placed in him when she fell asleep, the concern underlying it, seemed foolish to him then, but also as water to parched roots, returning to him something he couldn’t remember giving or receiving but still needing.

“I don’t know,” he says now. “She might not— Nightmares…”

“Have you talked to her about it?”

“…no.”

Steve doesn’t respond. Bucky glances up to find him with his arms crossed and brows raised. He sighs in response. “Yeah, yeah. I know. Practice what I preach.”

Steve nods. He closes the distance to the sink, cranking both the hot and cold faucet on high. As the water gushes into the basin, Bucky turns to leave, already running through scenarios of how _that_ conversation might go, when Steve calls his name.

“Yeah?” he asks, glancing back over his shoulder.

Steve meets his eyes. The affection in them shines clear. “Thanks. For checking up on me.”

Bucky shrugs, the informality of the gesture belied by the smile that once again blooms across his face. “No problem. What are friends for?”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two parts left: one more of Bucky/Darcy and Bucky coming to terms with himself and then our final party chapter. :D


	14. Part Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy and Bucky the night after their fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To keep this chapter just focused on Bucky and Darcy, and given the length of the two scenes included in the chapter, I've pushed the planned third and last scene to the next chapter, which means there will likely be two more chapters to the fic. Those who were with me while I was posting "That Which You Seek" will recognize the pattern of me being unable to restrain myself when it comes to scene length and thus continually dividing chapters. ☺ 
> 
> The book Bucky reads is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
> 
> Thank you everyone to has left feedback, kudos, bookmarks, etc. All of it has been much appreciated. I hope this chapter has been worth the wait.

And The Wounded Sing  
Part Fourteen

 

In the living room, Bucky dithers for ten minutes, walking from the couch upon which Darcy slept to the window and the view of Manhattan at midnight beyond the glass before drifting back to the couch and crouching beside it. Darcy sleeps in the same position as when Bucky left her, curled on her side with the blanket drawn up to her shoulders. He almost pulls the chair close and lets her sleep, but he recognizes the impulse for the delay tactic that it is, deriving from his fear that he ruined what they had, or what they almost had, with how far he’d pushed, with what he said to her about Hydra and her family, about torture and death and being forced to comply.

He’d hurt her. The reason mattered little when her face still bore the evidence of her grief.

Reaching out, Bucky slides one arm beneath Darcy’s legs and the other around her back. He lifts her, blanket and all, nearly waking her as he adjusts his grip. But he doesn’t so he proceeds to the door, which poses a similar challenge of coordination. Here he does wake her as he leans over to grasp the doorknob. Her head rolls against his chest and her lax muscles tense as awareness dawns.

“…Bucky?”

He steps through the door into the hall. “Taking you back to your place so you can sleep.”

“Oh.”

She’s silent as he walks them to the elevator. The doors open as he approaches, and he flashes a quick smile of gratitude at Jarvis before stepping inside. Darcy yawns as the doors slide shut and the elevator begins to descend. She squirms, freeing her arms from the blanket to loop them over his shoulders.

“You carry nice,” she murmurs as the elevator slows for her floor.

He can’t help the smile that forms. “You’re nice to carry.”

She nods against the crook of his neck. The doors open then and Bucky steps out onto her floor. They make their way to her apartment. Darcy looses one arm from around his neck to open the perpetually unlocked door. Bucky nudges it shut with his foot after they step inside. The light by the door illuminates his path, but he already knows the way. He could find it blind by now.

The messy bedding he finds in her bedroom makes him smile again. The Army had reinforced the neatness instilled within him by his ma, a neat room, like a neat appearance, another way to combat the slurs directed against him and his family. The thought of such messiness now gives him a momentary thrill, a metaphorical spit in the face to the Army and Hydra and everyone else in the world that demanded order and compliance and control, but it does so in theory more than in practice, Bucky too aware of the necessity of control for his sanity.

He crosses to the bed and sets Darcy down on the end. She unwinds her arms from around his neck and he moves to step back, but she snags his left hand before he can, keeping him in place before her.

“I don’t want you to go.”

Bucky peers down at her. Darcy doesn’t look up at him, she stares at his hand instead, not from any discomfort, he thinks, but from the darkness, his hand brighter than the rest of him, reflecting the light from the hall and the city outside. Bucky, though, can see her, the serum enhancing his senses. She squints at his hand, but he doubts this accounts for the faint line between her brows.

“I’m not leaving the Tower. I’m just going back to my place.”

She nods, but she doesn’t let go of his hand. Instead, she runs her thumbnail over the plates along the back of his hand. The heat of her hand, the pressure of her grip, and her inquisitive touch all resound in his brain, detected and enhanced by the sensors in his arm. Bucky swallows down the sensation and strives for steady breathing.

“I shouldn’t,” he says now. 

Darcy twists his hand around, brushes her fingertips against the curve of his palm. “Why not? I’m asking you to. Not for anything R-rated,” she adds, turning her attention to his fingers. “I’m too tired for that. I just want you to stay.”

The room echoes with the tiny tinks as she traces her thumbnail over the ridges of his first finger. Bucky shivers, the data building in his brain. Through the darkness, he sees Darcy smile, a soft one that makes him shake his head. “I don’t deserve to stay. Not after what I said tonight.”

Her smile turns wry. “Yeah, that was kind of shitty. Though I get why you said it. Still, I expect an apology for it in the morning.” She glances up at him then and meets his eyes. “Maybe one with pancakes since it’s my birthday.”

Bucky stares down at her, torn. “I don’t… I still don’t sleep well. Nightmares.”

“All the more reason for you to stay. No one should be alone if they’re afraid.”

He turns his head away from her and the light outside, trying to hide the emotion that twists his face, but Darcy either sees better in the dark than he anticipated or she knows him for she stands then and pulls him into a one-armed hug. She keeps her right hand latched onto his left, twining their fingers together in a proper grip. Bucky wraps his arm around her shoulders to complete the embrace, recalling Steve and their talk and his promise at the end to practice what he preached. 

“Okay,” he murmurs against the top of her head. “I’ll stay.”

Darcy pulls back enough to look at him. Hope brightens her face. “Really?”

He nods.

A brilliant smile breaks out across her face then, releasing with it a torrent of chatter. “I didn’t think you’d say yes so quickly. I had, like, seven more arguments lined up ready to use. But I’ll save those. We’ll probably need them sometime. You say fuck you, I say fuck you too, right?” She twists to her right until she stands beside him, both of them now facing the bed. “So how do you sleep? I’ve set up home base on the right side of the bed, but I’ve been here for all of two minutes so we can totally switch.” She glances up at him, her brow creased. “Are you a pajama guy? It’s totally fine if you’re not. Like, really fine.” Her eyes dart down to his chest. “Extremely fine. Very, _very_ —”

He quirks a brow. “Fine?”

“Yes. I mean, I will be,” she continues, looking him in the eyes again. “Wearing pajamas, that is. I tend to sleep cold, but you’re hot, in a temperature way and also in a face and body way, so that might change in the future. I pulled out some pants for you before hauling the rest of the bags to your place. Just in case. They’re over on—”

“You left some here?” he says, turning toward her. “Meaning you planned this.”

Darcy nods, not fazed in the least by being caught. “Of course I did. What else was I going to be thinking about this afternoon? We were, like, a millimeter from making out, dude. Not even Jane the buzzkill could kill that buzz.” She pauses then, frowning up at him. “Do you know—”

“I know what the word means. Jarvis taught me.”

Delight smoothes away the frown on her face. “He did?”

Bucky nods. “Buzzkill. A person who has a harsh or depressing effect on an otherwise enjoyable experience.”

Her mouth twitches again in a budding smile. Bucky glances down at it then up at Darcy. Her expression softens as he does and her smile grows, and he feels his heartbeat accelerate as she turns toward him. “Well, look at that. And here I thought the only word you knew was no.”

Bucky shakes his head. 

They stare at each other. Darcy swings their still linked hands, waiting for him. She tilts her face toward his, and Bucky knows this is the moment. He almost lost the last one; he can’t lose this one too. If he did, Hydra would win, taking something good from him before he even had it, and they’d already taken too much. Bucky pulls in a quick breath. He lifts his free hand only to lower it a moment later, unsure what to do. Should he touch her face? Place his hand on her waist? Her shoulder? This had to be good. For what he put her through, for what she deserved, for what he wanted, this had to be good. He parts his lips and grimaces at the stiffness in his jaw; his tongue felt heavy in his mouth. Would his body cooperate with him? Would he even remember how to kiss? Bucky tries to scramble back through his memories for past kisses, only to draw a blank, a buzzing white space in his brain.

Darcy frowns at him. “Bucky?”

“I, uh…” His heart races, and his hand feels prickly, tingling and dotted with sweat. Wiping it on his jeans, he says, “I haven’t, uh, done this… in a while. So I’m…” 

Her face softens in understanding. “Nervous.”

Bucky nods. He closes his eyes and breathes in again. Who the hell would ever have thought that he, James Barnes, would be nervous about kissing a dame?

Darcy squeezes his hand. When Bucky opens his eyes to look at her, she says softly, “I am, too. Not for the same reason. Obviously. It’s just… You—” She breaks off then, looking away. Her cheeks pink, and Bucky watches, as always transfixed by her approaching revelation. She stares at their linked hands for a moment then pulls in a long breath and continues. “The last few that I, you know, kissed, they were… whatever. Not that I didn’t care. Because I did. I’m not really the type for random make-outs. I mean, there were some. A few. Which is _so_ not the point,” she says quickly, her eyes darting to him and then away. The flush on her face deepens, and Bucky finds himself relaxing a fraction at her fluster. “What I’m trying very, _very_ badly to say is that you’re not whatever.” She looks at him now, her eyes huge and luminous in the dark. “You matter.”

Bucky gapes at her, frozen by her half-revelation, by his the day before. He loved her and she, in turn, he thinks, he fears, he hopes, loved him, but they hadn’t even kissed yet. They hadn’t kissed yet, but they’d slept in the same bed and she’d seen him naked, and the twisted, tangled order to this courtship, this unexpected salvation in his life, makes him start to laugh.

“What? What is it?”

Bucky looks at Darcy, finds her brow creased again. He reaches out and cups her face as he says, “This… You’re here and you’ve seen me naked and crazy and we haven’t even kissed and I…” He shakes his head, a rueful smile appearing now. “This is not how Winnifred Barnes raised her son to court a lady.”

She relaxes, smiling at him in return. “Maybe not,” she says, “but I didn’t mind how you did. In fact,” she pauses then, releasing his left hand to place it on her waist. She reaches up with hers now to touch his face. Her fingertips brush lightly through the bristles of his beard before she mirrors his previous gesture and cups his face. “Why don’t we keep with our tradition and you let me kiss you?” She pauses again, long enough for her smile to turn sly. “Unless it offends your old man sensibilities.”

The joke relieves the tension within him. Bucky eases his hand from her face, sweeping it down the side of her neck to her shoulder, where he lets his fingers play with a few stray strands of her hair. “No,” he says, his voice thick but sure. “I don’t think it would.”

“Good.”

In the moment it takes Darcy to raise herself on her toes, Bucky has one last moment of panic. He had never kissed with a beard before. Not even during the war, Bucky trying his best to stay groomed, to stave off the madness of trench warfare and the rumors of Hydra. At least before being captured. Would it burn too much to ruin the moment? Maybe he should shave it off and this is his last thought before Darcy closes the few inches between them and kisses him.

He registers soft pressure from her lips and the smell of cinnamon. Bucky closes his eyes and drinks in the sensations, the feel of her hand on his face, grounding and comforting, the warmth of her skin beneath her shirt and the soft slope of her waist. Each leech the lingering tension from his body, and Bucky settles into the embrace, winding his arm from her shoulder around her back and burying his fingers into her hair. 

His movement spurs Darcy’s. She withdraws and advances again, smooth as a wave, swelling up into him and parting her lips when they touch his once more to draw him into a deeper kiss. He tastes sugar and chases it, remembering, remembering how to move and breathe and be in these moments. Her breath catches in her throat when his tongue touches hers, and the muffled gasp makes Bucky pull her close, flush against him. Their legs tangle together. Darcy slides her hand from his face to loop her arm around his shoulders. Her fingers curl against the back of his neck, a soft brush that makes him shiver and still. Bucky feels Darcy smile, and she does it again, this time with her nails. He shivers again and stumbles forward, set loose now and seeking more.

He moves both hands to her face. He remembers. He remembers the rhythm, the shuffle and the slide timed to the beat of a heart. Tilting her face to the side, Bucky resumes the kiss. He feels her left hand clutch at his waist; her fingers dig into his hoodie, pulling down as she arches up into him. Bucky seeks her out again, his tongue nudging hers then, bolder, caressing, and this draws another gasp from Darcy, a soft moan that sets his blood alight. He sees red, the sweater she wore when she took her picture, the flushed tint of her skin whenever he stood close. He can do it, he thinks as he slides a leg between hers, he can do it, he can stand close to her whenever he wanted, he can touch her and make her blush and sleep beside her and be with her and love her, Bucky can love her, he can love her, he can, Hydra not killing this within him and not killing him despite their best efforts. 

Darcy pulls away then, her chest heaving. Even Bucky feels lightheaded, more from her than the lack of oxygen. Darcy eases down onto flat feet, but she doesn’t move away from him so Bucky holds on, keeping his right hand on her face but moving his left, sweeping it down her neck and over her shoulder, across her arm and to her waist and down to her hip and up again, soaking in the feel of her, the sensations detected by his hand making his head spin and body him. Darcy still holds tight to his waist, but she slips her arm from around his back and down until her palm lies flat against his chest. Bucky opens his eyes and finds hers still closed. His beard had pricked her face, shading the skin pink, but he focuses on her lips, lush and swollen and slick, provoking the desire within him. He moves back in to kiss her again, mindful of her need to breathe. This one he keeps to a simple press of his lips to hers, but the contact is enough to elicit another soft gasp from Darcy. She tilts her head to follow when he pulls back. Her eyes flutter open as he rubs his thumb against the corner of her mouth, and Bucky can’t help but smile at the dazed look in her eyes. 

“So,” he says, drawing the word out Brooklyn long, “you ready for bed?” 

Her eyes regain some of their focus. “No. Yes. Maybe.” She glances at his chest then and licks her lips. “Where, uh, where did you say you fell on the pajama spectrum?”

“I didn’t,” he says, laughing now. “But I’ve been wearing pants. No shirt. Too hot, like you said. But I don’t know if I should here.” At her questioning brow, Bucky looks at her hair, long and thick, and raises his left hand, prior victim to sweater threads.

Darcy stares at it a moment, his meaning failing to process through the haze surrounding them. When it does, her eyes clear and she straightens. “No worries, bear. I can totally braid it back.”

He makes a sound that some would categorize as a whine, which makes Darcy smile.

“Ok. So hair down. If serious entanglement happens, we’ll deal. I’ll pull my hair back or, I don’t know, we’ll get you a glove or something.”

Bucky moves both of his hands to her waist before cocking a brow. “A glove.”

Darcy nods. “A big one. Like an opera glove.” She smiles again and her eyes brighten with what he can only call wicked glee. “A sparkly one. Or, no, no, no, a _spangly_ one.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

She slips out of his embrace, making a noncommittal noise as she does.

He watches as she gathers her pajamas from a crumpled pile on the bed. “I’m serious.”

She says nothing, only smiles as she walks past him for the bathroom. 

“Darcy…”

“Fine,” she says, stopping in the doorway. She glances back over her shoulder at him, and his heart lurches, Darcy illuminated in full, bathed in cool tones of silver and cream as she eyes him, heat in her gaze. “Black leather it is.”

His eyes widen at the comment. Darcy smiles at him again, still sly and gleeful, before she closes the bathroom door. In the silence following her temporary absence, Bucky releases a long breath. His pulse flutters and his eyes dart to the bed, but he turns away after a moment, images of Darcy there, wearing that glove, naked and soft and keening for him, flooding his mind. He walks stiff-legged over to the chair instead, trying to will his dick into disinterest. His earlier uncertainty aids the procedure, this, sex, a lot more involved and liable to fault than a first kiss.

On the chair he finds a pair of thankfully plain pajama pants, a simple blue plaid in color. Bucky unzips and strips off his hoodie followed by his shirt, laying both along the back of the chair, then doffs his boots and socks, tucking them underneath. The door to the bathroom opens then, but Bucky proceeds on, needing vengeance for the leather glove. He pops the button and slides off his jeans, reaching over to grab the pajama pants. He wears boxers this time, in contrast to the motel, yet he still hears a short intake of breath behind him. Smirking, he dons the pants then turns around. Darcy stands in the doorway, clad in an old Culver tee and her polka dot pants, her lips pressed tightly together.

When their eyes lock, she arches a brow. “You’re a menace, you know that?”

“ _I’m_ the menace? You started it, dollface.”

She shakes her head as she starts for the bed. “You did.” 

He follows her lead, crossing to the right side. “How?” 

“Two words, bear. Wet t-shirt.”

Now Bucky shakes his head. “You can’t count that,” he says as he helps Darcy smooth out the bedding. “ _Or_ the motel. Neither of those was intentional. Unlike your sweater.”

Darcy narrows her eyes at him, striving for an out. Bucky tilts his head to the side and waits. She scrunches up her face, sensing the inevitable. After a few seconds, Darcy gives in with a groan and plops down onto the bed.

“Fine. I started it. Now will you and your smug chest get into bed?”

He does, unrepentant about the smug smile on his face. Darcy rolls her eyes at him but she scoots in close when he lies down, laying her head on his shoulder and throwing an arm over his chest. Her lack of hesitation, her willingness to be close, affects him, freezing him in place. Bucky feels her tense, and he moves as she does, wrapping his arm around her as she begins to pull away.

“Don’t. Please. I was… I was just—” He grits his teeth, tensing again at his persistent inability to speak. “You never— You never hesitate. About me.”

Darcy relaxes against him. “Why should I? Everything you’ve done from about ten seconds after we met when it comes to me has been to help me. There’s no reason for me to hesitate.” 

Bucky tightens his arm around her, again unable to speak. He twists his head to the side to place a kiss on hers, threading his fingers into her hair as he does and hoping to convey in gestures what he can’t at the moment in words. 

He must for Darcy shifts even closer, reaching out over him until she can clasp his left arm with her hand. She smoothes her palm over his bicep, over and over and over again. Bucky shivers at the sensations and at what she whispers as he closes his eyes to sleep.

“The only one who hesitates about you, Bucky, is you.”

*

He sleeps about as much as he anticipates, which isn’t much. No nightmares plague him, only a few garden variety dreams. He just doesn’t sleep, not wanting to lose this moment, wanting to make it real instead, to make it permanent inside him, to commit it to memory beyond where Hydra can reach.

Darcy shifts, turning back around to face Bucky. She had switched sides on the bed so they could keep her hair safe from his left arm, or his left arm safe from her hair. His right, though, maintained a near constant presence in her curls, carding through them as Darcy drifted to sleep, playing with the ends after she rolled to her other side. The contact helped ground him, helped banish the lingering doubt about the reality of this moment. He is here and so is she. They live in this Tower with friends, with hope for the future, one that he might actually deserve.

Bucky watches Darcy settle again then he turns the next page of his book. He’d spent the first hour after waking studying her wall, memorizing the names of bands to listen to and moments to ask her about in future conversations. He’d stared out the window and marked the changes in the dark as dawn approached. Then he’d leaned over and snagged one of the books from her nearby shelf, a Harry Potter book, recalling her bonding ritual with Thor. By the time the sun crests and brightens the sky outside, he’s read the first seven chapters, far enough to determine that Draco is a dick but not as wretched as Harry’s family, that he needed perhaps to eat more chocolate to feel better, and that, if he ever gets to be on good terms with Jane, he might have to start calling her Granger. 

At seven, he slips out of bed, book in hand and two more chapters conquered. He puts on coffee and revises his opinion and bestows the biggest dick of the book title to Severus Snape before working through a short exercise routine, push-ups and sit-ups, the burn of muscles proof of his presence here and now. He drifts to the kitchen upon finishing and fishes out the ingredients for pancakes, and the combined smell of bubbling coffee and cooking batter finally lures Darcy from her bedroom around eight.

She shuffles to the kitchen, but bypasses the coffee for Bucky, stepping bleary-eyed behind him to wrap him in a hug. She places a soft kiss on his back and settles in, leaning against him as he cooks. The peace of this moment, its reality in his life, its reality _as_ his life now, makes his throat swell. He lays his left hand along hers and flips the pancakes, and they stand in silence together, waiting for the pancakes to thicken and brown.

“You do know that’s the third book,” she says after a few moments.

Bucky nods. “It’s the one I could reach. I’ll go back and read the first two once I’m done.” 

He feels her smile against his back. “Thor said he mentioned the HP marathon. I wasn’t planning on subjecting you to it.”

“Why? You listened to me gripe about _The Hobbit_.”

“But that’s one movie. You’re signing yourself up for eight.”

“So? It’s what you like.”

Darcy says nothing then her arms tighten around him and Bucky feels the air hitch in her chest. He freezes mid-reach for the spatula. “Are you—”

“I’m fine. This, everything, you…” She shifts, lays another kiss on his spine. “It’s…” She grows quiet again, searching for the right word. Bucky feels her blow out a soft sigh; gooseflesh breaks out across his arm at the sensation.

“I get it,” he says, squeezing her hand. “This is good.”

She smiles again. “Yeah, it is. Which is why,” she continues, sliding around until she can peer up at him, “we should ditch the party tonight and hang out, just us. Well, Steve can come too. And Erik. And Clint and Pepper and—”

He arches a brow. “And everyone but Tony, Thor, and Jane?”

“Yes! See, you and me.” She waves a finger between them. “Simpatico.”

Trying but failing to squash his smile, Bucky grabs the spatula and begins lifting the pancakes to the pile already gathered on the nearby plate. His smile fades as he contemplates his response, disappearing completely when he says it. “You know I don’t think they’re wrong. Thor and Jane. Not completely.”

Darcy groans. “Don’t remind me.”

She starts to turn for the fridge then, but Bucky grabs her hand, stilling her before she can. “They mean well,” he says, trying not to panic when she doesn’t meet his eyes. “Trust me. I spent the first part of my life chasing after Steve, trying to keep him out of trouble. And this, not us, but the rest of it, what comes with me, it’s more than trouble.”

“I know. I _know_.” She flops back against the counter, shaking her head. “I just… don’t react well when people try to tell me what to do. Not like this. It reminds me too much of my dad. And my brothers. Well, more Dan than Dave, and yes,” she says, glancing at Bucky with an arched brow, “my parents were _those_ kind of people. Daniel, David, and Darcy Lewis, the demented children of Don and Darlene.”

One corner of Bucky’s mouth quirks up. “That explains so much.”

Darcy narrows her eyes at him. “Okay, pot. Your kettle called and wants its _Bucky_ back.”

He shrugs as he reaches for the pancake batter. “My folks wanted to be patriotic.”

“You do know they picked, like, one of the lamest presidents in history.” 

Bucky pauses before pouring to give her a look.

“Which,” she concedes, “is still a better reason for a name than an intense love for alliteration.”

“Damn straight.” 

He pours now, making three new pancakes. Darcy opens the refrigerator door and reaches inside, popping back into view a few seconds later with butter, syrup, and orange juice in hand. 

“Okay,” she says as she shuffles to the small dining area, “but I reserve the right to still be pissed at Tony. He was an ass and he fired me, and he needs to learn he can’t buy his way out of every doghouse.”

“Fair enough.”

She places the breakfast paraphernalia on the table then returns for glasses and plates. “Okay, so party tonight. And for that you are under no obligation to wear any of the clothes that Thor and I bought for you. Seriously, bear. Thor’s a total diva when it comes to clothes. He was picking out, like, velvet smoking jackets and leather pants. Although, come to think of it…” 

Darcy drifts off. Bucky waits for her to continue, a trickle of unease winding through him at the prospect of the party, but the silence stretches on. Glancing back over his shoulder, he finds her, plates in hand, giving his ass and legs the once over. He smirks at her blatant ogling and says, “Hate to break it to you, dollface, but leather pants, like spangly gloves, might be a bridge too far.”

She nods, still gazing at his thighs. “What about skinny jeans?”

“Isn’t that what Steve already gave me?”

Darcy shakes her head. “No, those are just a wondrous preview of what could be.”

Bucky makes a face. “They don’t sound comfortable.”

“They can be,” Darcy says quickly, looking up at him now. “They can stretch and move and still, you know, make a young gal’s lusty dreams come true.”

He laughs now. He can’t help it. “Anyone ever tell you you’re shameless?” he asks, turning back to flip the pancakes.

“Yes.” She bounds up to him then and plops her chin on his shoulder, peering up at him with doe eyes. “Please. Consider it a birthday present.”

“I thought the pancakes were your gift.”

“No, these are an _apology_ gift. The jeans would be the most awesome of all birthday gifts. Plus,” she adds, smiling now, a sly one that makes his pulse kick up a notch, “I’ll do a total quid pro quo for your birthday.”

The lightness inside him diminishes at the offer, his birthday in March, ten months away. Too many variables existed for any guarantee that Bucky would be around then, that Hydra wouldn’t have him again, or that he wouldn’t be in prison for his crimes, or that Darcy would want to stay with him that long, or that he wouldn’t, perhaps, finally, be dead. But no good would come from such thoughts, not after last night, not after their fight, so he tries to push them aside and to be with her in the here and now.

“Well, with an offer like that,” he says, looping an arm around her and leaning in to lay a kiss on the top of her head, “how can a guy refuse?”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So was it worth the wait? Only 100,000 words of build-up. I tried to make it a worthy first kiss. :)


	15. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An interlude, the morning after their first kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally the start of Part Eleven, which veered in a wildly different (re: angsty) direction. However, I always liked this interaction, considered transforming it into a prompt fic (based off of “I’m flirting with you”), but then I would have had to ditch the bit about super spy code names (which is a big reason why I want to post it because it’s cute), so instead I’ve shaped it into an interlude of sorts before the final two chapters. I’ve kept the opening the same, though it is a variation of Part Eleven; it makes a nice counterpart of sorts to that chapter. 
> 
> I can't believe that "That Which You Seek" has passed 3000 kudos. "And The Wounded Sing" has passed 1300. I'm so grateful and in awe and giddy at the response. Thank you for the support and encouragement and all of the kind words and excitement left in the comments. Receiving those brightens my day each and every time, so thank you!
> 
> I have one more part of "And If I Call for You" to finish then it's back to here to wrap up the last two parts. Thank you for your patience. As you can see, the break has been a good one for my fic writing heart.

And The Wounded Sing  
Interlude

 

Bucky doesn’t know the music playing in the background, something fast and bass-heavy, but he doesn’t care, not with the way it makes Darcy move, loose and free as she dances from room to room. He doesn’t know the food that they eat, some chicken noodle dish that Darcy said her grandmother used to make for her, but he eats it anyway, Darcy swearing he would love it. He doesn’t understand the intricacies behind the Diaspora politics or what a face book is and why she wishes she could post him on it, but none of that matters, not with how Darcy smiles at him and how she takes the time to ask him about his first attempts at yoga and how she throws her head back and laughs as he describes how he nearly kicked Bruce in the balls when he fell face first onto the mat trying to emulate Pepper in a particularly difficult pose. Everything falls to the wayside, insignificant compared to how Bucky smiles at her and how he asks her about the classes that she’s considering for summer school and how he throws his head back and laughs as she describes the time she really did kick Clint in the balls as he tried to teach her basic self-defense. 

Everything, that is, except for his hair.

His hair irritates. His hair torments. His hair nettles his nose and neck. Bucky squirms, trying to brush it away, and he does, only straight into his fork as he lifts it toward his mouth, entangling hair and noodles in one disgusting bite. Darcy dances past then, plopping onto the couch next to him in a pair of what she calls legging but what he calls heaven, and, distracted, irritated, horny, happy, and frustrated, he shoves his left hand back through his hair to push it from his face. The strands snarl in his fingers, hooking in the plates so quickly and thoroughly that he can’t even pull away.

“Fuck.”

Darcy glances up from her tablet. Her eyes widen as she catches sight of him. She lifts a hand to her mouth, but Bucky still sees her smile as well as her attempts to restrain her laughter, which completely and utterly fails.

“It’s your fault,” he mutters, slumping back against the couch. 

“How?” she asks as she stands. 

His eyes drop to her legs and he cocks a brow. “You call those pants?”

“Yep,” she says, the ‘p’ popping as she passes into her room. “Gloriously comfortable, heavenly cotton and spandex goodness.” He hears her rummage around for a few seconds before coming back out, a comb in her hand and her mouth curved into a wicked little grin. “Why? Do you find them objectionable in some way?”

He narrows his eyes at her. “You’re a menace, you know that?”

Her grin widens as she comes to a stop behind him. “I thought I was a doll.” 

“You’re both.”

“Ooh.” Darcy leans over the back of the couch until she can look him in the eyes. Her own are bright and make him want to smile, but he smothers the urge to maintain the curmudgeon. “The Menacing Doll. You think that can be my super-spy code name? Or the Dollface Menace. It has a nice ring to it.”

“Can we decide on your code name _after_ you help me?”

Her eyes drift up to his still caught hand. Her lips twitch as she fights back another smile.

Bucky just looks at her and sighs. 

“Okay. Okay. I get your eloquently glaring message, dude.” She starts to straighten, only to lean back in a second later and say, “But you’d laugh too if you saw you. I mean, do you know how hard I’m working _not_ to take a picture right now?”

He narrows his eyes at her again. “Not hard enough.”

“So very true.”

Her arm whips around with her phone in hand. Darcy throws her arm around him then and leans in close. “Say cheese!”

“No.”

The camera clicks anyway. Bucky heaves another sigh, followed quickly by a third when Darcy holds the screen up before them. A second later the image resolves, Darcy with an especially brilliant smile on her face set in contrast to Bucky, his scowl, and his hand plastered to his head like a metal fascinator. 

Darcy laughs so hard at the picture she shakes them both. “Oh my god, bear. This is the best.”

“Yes, when I think of the best, it’s of having my hand stuck to my head while a beautiful dame laughs at me.”

The unexpected compliment brings a blush to her face. “Don’t worry,” she says as she leans forward to sets her phone beside him. “This will not be going on the wall.”

“Good.”

“Just my computer. And my tablet. And—”

Bucky sighs again. Grinning, Darcy swoops in and gives him a quick kiss on the cheek. Now he blushes at the unexpected affection, this still so new, just half a day in. Her warmth lingers as she pulls back, and Bucky tries to retain his scowl, but he can’t, his irritation dissolving in the face of her amusement, of the warmth and her care for him underlying it, and he finds himself starting to laugh too. “You know, I used to be smooth.” 

“I bet you were,” she says, reaching for her comb. “I bet all you had to do was stand on a street corner and smile—”

“A street corner?” He tilts his head back to look at her. “We had buildings back then, you know. I’m not _that_ old.”

Darcy grins down at him. “Yes, you are. You said so yourself.”

He had, not more than twenty feet away, sitting in her bedroom in the wake of his breakdown, in his first tentative steps toward recovery. Darcy had steamrolled him then, first with her mention of being naked, then with her revelation about studying him, about choosing him, in high school. About her doing so again, now, despite all he’d done. He’d faltered then, reminded once more of her innocence, her goodness, Bucky ragged and soiled in comparison. She’d cast aside his doubt as she had before, refusing to let him refuse something good.

“Besides,” she says now, poking him in the shoulder to draw him from his thoughts. “This is my reverie, so we’re going all in.”

Bucky glances back at her. She sends him a softer smile than before, Darcy likely discerning the tenor of his thoughts. He reaches up then and clasps her hand, running his callused thumb against the softness of her palm. “Yes, we are.”

Her blush returns. “And you said you weren’t smooth. All you need is your street corner, dude, and the image would be complete. Oh, and a suit too,” she says, releasing his hand now to begin untangling his hair from his hand. “With a hat.”

“A suit and a hat.”

“Yes. And you’d stand there, in your suit and your hat, leaning against a lamppost, and you’d smile, right? And all the ladies would just flock to you.”

“Not _all_ the ladies. Just the classy ones.” 

Darcy freezes then, not for long, just enough for Bucky to notice. He tilts his head back to look at her again and spots the stiffness in her smile before she averts her gaze. 

“What is it?”

She shrugs. The gesture reminds him of Steve and his flimsy smiles. 

He reaches up again to grab her hand. “Darcy.”

“It’s nothing,” she says quickly. When he doesn’t release her, she expels a short huff of a breath and finally meets his eyes. “If you want classy, bear, you’re gonna have to go somewhere else.”

He peers up at her, his brows drawn together. He called her shameless for desiring to see him in skinny jeans, had joked about her taking a peek at him when he was naked in the motel, citing it as the reason why he called her Darcy rather than Ms. Lewis. He had meant to highlight their greater intimacy, but had she taken it as this, as a sign of her tawdriness? Maybe she couldn’t help but do so, living here in this fancy Tower. She hadn’t told him much of her life growing up, but he’d seen the pictures on her wall. A nice upbringing, he thinks one comparable to his own, not rich by any means, but not the wretched level of poverty that consistently plagued Steve. He thought she knew that none of that mattered, not to him, not anymore. He would trade it all, the Tower and the clothes and the belongings, for her and for Steve, the two people who looked at him, a broken wretch, and saw a thing worth saving.

“I disagree,” he says now, squeezing her hand.

A smile tugs at one corner of her mouth. “Of course you do.”

“I do. And not just because the only word I know is no.”

Darcy lifts her brows. The fondness in her gaze as she eases her hand away to start again on his hair takes his breath away. “Oh really? So what might your reason be?”

He wishes he could face her as he says it, but perhaps it was better this way, Bucky able to focus on the TV before them, on her reflection, on his words, to say them sure and true. “When most people think of classy,” he begins, “they think fancy, swanky. Like Stark— Howard, I mean, not so sure about Junior— or Ms. Potts. That’s not you, which isn’t a bad thing because that’s not me either. Not anymore. But classy’s also decent. It’s kind. And in that way, you’re the classiest dame I know.” 

Darcy’s hands still in his hair again. Bucky leans back and looks at her, finds tears in her eyes and her lips pressed tight together. She breaks when he meets her gaze, leaning forward to loop her arms around his neck. Darcy presses the side of her face against his. Bucky holds on the best he can, covering her clasped hands with his right and holding on tight.

“That might be a better birthday present than you in skinny jeans,” she murmurs after a moment. “Thank you.”

He nods, emotion clamping down upon him, thickening his throat.

“It’s also proof,” she continues, her voice a soft murmur in his ear. “Of you being classy too. Of progress. A month ago, two weeks ago, you would have struggled to say this, to say all you did last night. But you can and you did, and that’s the best birthday present of all.”

His breath stutters in his chest. It does even more when Darcy pulls back. Bucky feels her twist toward him, and he turns to meet her, not just his head, but all the way around until he’s on his knees facing her. He reaches out with his right hand and cups her face, drawing her closer as he moves in. He kisses her with the assurance he discovered again last night, that she helped him to reclaim. Darcy leans into him, her hands on the back of the couch. Bucky glides his thumb across her cheek. She parts her lips, and, distracted as he is by her kiss, by the breathy little moan that sounds from her when their tongues touch, he tries to reach for her with his left hand too, only to find it still entangled in his hair. The momentum from his attempt to hold her yanks him from the kiss, and Bucky nearly tips over, saved at the last moment by Darcy, who grabs his shirt and hauls him straight.

Bucky closes his eyes and sighs as Darcy starts to smile. “Can you not mention this to Steve? Ever?”

She laughs now. “My lips are sealed, dude. Or they are until I get your hand free and we make out some more.”

Bucky opens his eyes. Darcy wags her brows at him, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, and his breath stills in his chest at how she glows, Darcy radiant and utterly shameless. He feels incandescent too, grinning and giddy, in awe at her and her presence in his life, at the potential unfurling before them, of a life together, both loving and being loved.

“I think that sounds like an excellent plan.” 

*


	16. Part Fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky has a request that's a long time in coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The phrases “the space between stars” and “desert places” refer to the Robert Frost poem “Desert Places,” which was published in 1937. My headcanon is that Bucky would have been a fan growing up, being the good student that he was. 
> 
> Okay, so I finished this scene on Sunday and started work on the planned second scene for this chapter, but this week has been hella intense at work and it will be until Monday that I can write again, which means I won't finish that second scene until next Friday, but everyone has been so patient that I'm going to go ahead and post this (also to show that I *am* working on it and close to finishing).

And The Wounded Sing  
Part Fifteen

As far as plans went, Bucky infinitely preferred the prior one, he and Darcy alone in her apartment, together and happy and learning how to be with each passing moment and every new kiss. But to continue those, he needed to do this. However, to do this, he needs courage that he’s not sure he possesses, his prior failures proof of its absence. Darcy would disagree, and he knows that Steve would too, but they don’t matter. Not for this. Only Bucky mattered, he the one that needed to look into the mirror, his reflection the one he would see, but for this, Bucky falters, hesitating before the closed door, his heart pounding and his body sweating and his mind churning, caught in an endless loop between faith and doubt.

“James?”

Bucky starts and stumbles back from the door, whirling to find Bruce behind him and not in his apartment as he anticipated. He carries a few notebooks in his hand along with a tablet and stares at Bucky with a faint frown creasing his brow.

“Is everything all right? You—”

“I need you to cut my hair.”

Bruce blinks at that. His eyes slide from Bucky’s face to the tangled mop surrounding his head.

“And help me shave,” Bucky continues before he can lose his nerve. “Because I— I don’t know if I can do it. Not yet. Not by myself. But I need to,” he adds quickly, licking his lips as he draws in a deep breath. “I can’t—” But he stops before he can finish, his mouth snapping shut on a swell of nausea.

Bruce’s frown deepens. “You can’t what? Shave?”

Bucky shivers from remembered cold. “No. Look. In the mirror.”

At the revelation, Bruce’s frown vanishes. If pity had claimed its place, Bucky would have spun on his heel and walked away, but he sees only what he had expected to see, what drove him here rather than to Steve: understanding. Out of everyone in the Tower, Bucky reckons that Bruce has struggled to look at himself in the mirror, to confront the reality of what has become. He could hopefully help him to do the same.

“Well, the shaving I can definitely help you with,” Bruce says as he starts forward. “I have a kit from India that I think you can use. But your hair…” He reaches for the doorknob then, a small smile on his face. “I’ve cut my own before, if that’s what brought you here, but I’ve never done it for anyone else, so for that, I have an alternate suggestion.”

“Not Darcy. I want it to be a surprise.”

Bruce shakes his head. “Not Darcy. Pepper.” He opens the door to his apartment and gestures for Bucky to follow him inside. “She’s cut Tony’s hair before. After New York. Mine, too, when I didn’t feel steady enough to do it myself. I know she won’t mind helping you.”

The suggestion helps to steady his unsettled nerves, Pepper graceful yet warm in her demeanor. Plus, she had style, so she’d make Bucky look good and not like a hedgehog attacked his head, which, admittedly, would likely still look better than what his hair had now become. “Ms. Potts is fine,” he says as they leave the hall for the expansive living room. “If you’re sure she won’t mind.”

Bruce crosses to the soft grey couch and places his belongings on the nearby coffee table. “She won’t. In fact…” He pulls his phone from his pants pocket and clicks two buttons. Bucky hovers by the entrance, this room larger, cooler in tone and cleaner in design than the one he shares with Steve. As with the suggestion of Pepper, Bucky lets the ambience settle his nervy pulse. 

Bruce raises his phone to his ear and waits. The line opens a few seconds later. “Pepper? Are you free?” He’s silent a moment then his eyes find Bucky. “James is here, and we wondered if you wouldn’t mind helping him cut his hair.” He quiets for Pepper’s response. A soft smile breaks across his face a second later. “Fantastic. The door will be open for you. And Pepper?” She says something in response, prompting Bruce to laugh. “Exactly. Don’t tell Tony.”

Bruce hangs up and slides the phone back into his pocket. As he does, Bucky arches a brow. “Don’t tell Tony?”

Bruce shakes his head. “Not if you want it to stay a secret. Tony’s never learned the meaning of subtle. Or of secret.” His gaze slides from Bucky to the hall to his left. “Can I interest you in a cup of tea while we wait? Or would you like to shave first?”

Fast, too fast, he says, “Tea.” As Bruce blinks in shock, Bucky sends him a brittle smile. “It’s soothing, right?”

“It is.” 

They move down the short hall to the kitchen, a sizable room that flows to an eating nook as well as a formal dining room turned messy office. Bruce sets about making the tea, pulling out a small burnished pot from a bottom cabinet and filling it with filtered water before placing it on the stove. Bucky hovers in the entrance here as he did in the living room, watching the ritual. Bruce moves with swift, practiced motions, each smooth and precise. The contrast between this, Bruce quiet and contained, versus the footage of the Hulk, all rampaging strength and undeniable fury, strikes Bucky, summoning visions of himself as he had been with Hydra, restraint on the outside yet a riot within. The riot has lessened, so too the restraint, and a balance, perhaps even a person, has been achieved. After all, he survived the past day, the tumult of his confrontation with Tony then his fight with Steve and Darcy and the night that he spent with her, speaking and ranting and fighting and feeling and staying, staying there, not slipping back into the past but remaining firm and fixed in the present. What further proof did he need?

“On second thought,” he says to Bruce, “can I go ahead and shave?”

Bruce nods. He closes the cabinet for the tea cups and directs Bucky back through the hall and the living room to the other side of the apartment. In contrast to the two bedrooms composing the apartment he shared with Steve, he sees only one bedroom here, as spacious and soothing as the living room. Bruce leads him to the bathroom where he flips on the light before opening a drawer to pull out a leather shaving kit. He reaches back in a second later to remove an electric trimmer and razor as well as a can of shaving cream. Bruce places all on the counter then moves to the linen closet for a few small towels.

“All set,” he says, turning toward Bucky. “Let me know if you need anything else. I’ll be in the kitchen, waiting for Pepper. We’ll probably set up in there when she gets here. More room and all.”

Bucky nods. “Thank you. I know I probably should’ve asked before I came—”

Bruce waves away the apology. “It’s no trouble. I’m glad to help.”

He leaves then, pulling the bathroom door to as he does. Bucky waits until he passes through the bedroom out into the hall, also pulling that door to, before he unzips his hoodie and hangs it on the nearby hook. The mirror looms, gleaming and bright. Bucky feels his pulse increase, and he pulls in a deep breath to counter the uptick. Still, his hand shakes as he steps before the sink, as he reaches for the shaving kit and pries open the latch. Inside, he finds a wooden cup for lather and a fat shaving brush along with a straight razor and accompanying strop. Bucky checks both the trimmer and the electric razor for charge, though he knows he’ll use the straight edge when it comes time to shave, his hand steadier with a blade. He twists the faucet, turns the water hot to wet one of the towels, then wrings out the excess and leaves it dangling, damp, along the sink’s edge, and all the while he does not look into the mirror, he does not raise his eyes, he evades and avoids and stalls. He does so now, scanning the vanity for more to do but finding nothing. 

Breathing hard, Bucky grips the edge of the sink. Why can’t he look? Darcy looks at him, Steve looks at him, Tony and Bruce and even Ms. Potts, they all look at Bucky, and none of them look away, none of them scream or frown or cringe in horror. They stare straight, they stare kind, and for Darcy and Steve, they stare with love, but Bucky evades and avoids and stalls, and even as he contemplates why, he knows the answer. He evades and avoids and stalls because he lived each death, he knows each person he killed, he feels the kick of the gun in his hands or the grip of the knife or, for some, the feel of them beneath his hands as he punched or choked their life away.

He shivers, remembering. Then he remembers that they may not remember, but they know. They know and they’ve seen and, for some, they’ve lived, they’ve experienced violence and promised death at the hands of the Winter Soldier, and yet they still see something worth helping, they still see something worth seeing. They still see something worth loving. And how could they, if this were real? If this were real, Steve would hate him. Bucky killed Howard, he tried to kill Natasha, he tried to kill Sam, he tried to kill Steve. No one would forgive all that, not even a man as good as Steve. And Darcy, kind and warm and messy and gorgeous and funny Darcy, she wouldn’t choose Bucky, not anymore. Not as he is now. Women like her, classy dames, they chose Steve. Carter did. Darcy would too. She’d only pick him, she’d only choose him, she’d only kiss him and she’d only love him if this— if this weren’t real. If this were just in his— 

“James?” 

Bucky tenses. The voice without body, the voice in his head. Is it Jarvis or Zola? Jarvis or Zola?

“James, I apologize for the intrusion. Your heart rate has spiked, and you show signs of physical distress. Is everything all right?”

The question makes him laugh, a sad, desperate, slightly mad laugh. “No, pal. I can’t say it is.”

Jarvis says nothing for a moment, likely running more scans. Can a sentient intelligent computer scan for insanity? Bucky laughs a second time as tears pool in his eyes, and then Jarvis speaks, “Shall I call Ms. Lewis? Or Captain Rogers?”

“No!” Bucky winces at his detectable anguish. Closing his eyes, he pulls in a shuddering breath before saying slowly, “No. Please. I don’t want them to see me like this.”

“Perhaps Dr. Banner? Or Ms. Potts?”

Bucky shakes his head.

A few seconds of silence pass. Then Jarvis says softly, “May I be of assistance to you? I wish to help if I can, whatever my parameters allow for me to do.”

The detectable concern makes Bucky close his eyes. “I don’t know if you can. I don’t know if _anyone_ can. They say that I’m better, and sometimes I feel like I am, but then… then sometimes I slip, like now, and I doubt and I think, ‘This isn’t real.' I keep waiting to wake up. All the other times, all the other dreams, I did. I woke up to the mission. That was real. Complying. Not this, and I… I just can’t…” 

He drifts off and silence drifts in, only to shatter when Jarvis says, urgent, “Apologies, James. It seems Ms. Potts was unable to evade Sir, and he’s arrived.”

Opening his eyes, Bucky hears nothing then a soft jumble of voices reach him, people moving down the hall, drawing closer. And then, loud and brash, “—a connoisseur of facial hair, if you will. If anyone’s presence is needed to guide Barnes back to being a real boy, it’s me.” The door to Bruce’s bedroom bangs open and Tony crows out, “Tin Man! Your follicle salvation is here!”

He crosses the room without waiting for Bucky’s response. Bucky wants to unclench his hands, he wants to stand straight and not be mired in madness and doubt, but he can’t so he waits, and, a second later, the door bangs open and Tony appears.

He carries a bottle in one hand and a small box in the other and he bats bright eyes at Bucky until the scene before him processes. Then the grin vanishes. Tony spins on his heel and blocks the way to the bathroom, his arms outstretched.

“What—”

Bruce, concerned, likely trying to peer in.

“Tinker,” Tony says.

“What?” 

“Tell Pep ‘tinker.’ She’ll understand.”

With that, he turns again, slips into the bathroom, and shuts the door. “Here,” he says, thrusting the bottle toward Bucky. “You look like you need a drink.”

Bucky moves then, grabbing the bottle and twisting off the cap of some whisky brand of which he’s never heard and doubts he could ever afford.

“Sir,” Jarvis begins, “I don’t think—”

“Did you or did you not harp on me for _days_ to bond with Barnes over our American horror stories?”

“I did, but—”

“But nothing. Hold all incoming, pending world catastrophes.” 

There’s a moment of silence in which Bucky swallows a burning mouthful of the liquor and then Jarvis says, his voice stiff, “Yes, sir.”

The line closes. Bucky downs another shot in the ensuing silence before holding the bottle back out to Tony. His chest heaves though he hasn’t moved in minutes, but his hands no longer shake so for this, at least, he’s grateful for Tony’s arrival. The man himself watches Bucky as Bucky turns and leans back against the sink. He lifts his hand and rubs it over his face, waiting for Tony to speak. Tony, of course, doesn’t make him wait long.

“You know,” he says as he saunters over to the toilet, “I should hate you. Not for past stuff,” he clarifies, glancing at Bucky as he sits down. “For the present. For the fact that you’ve been here, what, a month? And you’ve turned all my goddamn robots against me. You and Dum-E keep looking at the door, waiting for you to show up again. And Jarvis…” Tony shakes his head. “I’m the one who gave them life and yet they like you better than they do me.”

Bucky huffs out a hollow laugh. “I’m a likeable guy.”

“Oooh, self-loathing sarcasm. My specialty.” 

“I thought that was emotional inadequacy,” Bucky says as Tony drinks a liberal helping from the whisky.

“It is. Hence the sarcasm.” He passes the bottle back to Bucky, waiting for him to claim it before he continues. “So from one self-loathing soul to another, what’s got your beard in a knot? Is it Rogers? Did he ream you out for our completely justifiable and not at all insane plan? My ass is still recovering from this morning’s onslaught.” 

“No. Well, yes,” Bucky amends. “We fought, but that’s not… this.” Pausing again, Bucky takes a drink. He stares at the bottle, unsure if he wants to voice this to Tony. Steve and Darcy were one thing. Even Jarvis. But Tony, despite the claims of shared horror stories, he doesn’t know.

Tony must detect his hesitation for he leans forward then and catches his eye. “Barnes, seriously. What could you say that I would judge? Aside from the whole assassin past, which, I think, I’ve adapted to pretty well given that it’s me. But aside from that. PTSD? Check. Mind melting levels of anxiety? Check. A suicidal downward spiral that nearly lost me everything? Check. The—”

“Lingering doubt that none of this is real and that you’re still with Hydra, frozen in your tube, and that you always will be?”

“Check.”

Bucky looks at him, surprised.

“Well, not Hydra,” Tony says as he reaches out for the bottle. “Ten Rings. And a cave instead of a cryo tube.” His mouth flattens from the memory. Tony moves to drink only to lower the bottle with a shake of his head. “Three months isn’t seventy years, but there was more than once after I came back that I thought I was still there. The same after New York.” He drinks then, a quick swallow that ends in a sharp little laugh. “You fly through a portal to the ass end of space and die, you sometimes think you’re still dead in the ass end of space.”

Bucky eyes him. He’d read about New York the night he spent in the motel with Darcy, but the reports he studied failed to mention Tony dying. He understands better why Jarvis wanted him to speak with Tony: torture from the Ten Rings, Hydra killing his parents, dying in New York. Not the footloose and fancy-free existence that his wealth would indicate. 

“How do you know you’re not?” he asks, still peering at Tony.

The sigh that Tony unleashes then makes Bucky tense. Heaving himself up from the toilet, he turns toward Bucky, cocks a brow, and says, “Barnes, if you were hallucinating a better life as a coping mechanism for your wretched existence with Hydra, do you _really_ think you’d imagine sitting in a cramped bathroom with _me_ while we grouse about our shared life trauma, or do you think that you’d hallucinate doing unspeakably lewd acts with _Lewis_ in a place that’s decidedly not a bathroom?”

Bucky stares at him a moment then one corner of his mouth twitches into a smile. “Fair point.”

“It is,” Tony says as he passes Bucky the bottle. “So whenever you feel like this isn’t real or that you don’t deserve it or whatever, remember that you’re still a supremely fucked up, emotionally scarred nonagenarian who’s being hunted by a non-corporeal and likely immortal Nazi as well as, probably, by now, the United States government and those of about seven other countries.”

The speech ends with a broad, shit-eating grin that makes Bucky understand a little better Steve’s need to perpetually punch Tony in the face. But Bucky just shakes his head, unable to stop the reciprocating smile. 

Tony waves a hand at the ceiling. “Jarvis, make a note. Make twelve. I have now accomplished what Rhodey said was unequivocally impossible.” His smile turns smug as he wags his brows at Bucky. “Successful emotional comfort.”

Bucky lifts the bottle. “Yeah. You’re a regular Florence Nightingale.”

“Damn straight. Now, in the spirit of the Nightingale…” Tony pauses then to reach out, slowly, waiting for Bucky to either back away or smash the bottle in his face. When Bucky does neither, Tony lays his hands gently on his shoulders, looks him straight in the eyes, and says, “Please, for the love of whatever it is that you love, Barnes, whether that be scowls, guns, or the kid, shave off that dead animal that’s clinging to your face. You’re making my soul hurt.”

“Like you can talk,” Bucky says, cocking a brow at Tony’s goatee. “What exactly do you call that?” 

“I call it style. I’m not surprised you can’t see it.” He lowers his hands and backs away, giving Bucky the once over as he does. “You’re like a sad cross between a crazy mountain man and an emo kid.”

Bucky bypasses asking about the emo kid reference in favor of a slit-eyed glare. “I’m starting to get now why Steve wants to punch you so much.”

“That’s because he’s a sad cross between a golden retriever and an angry grandpa ranting at kids to get off his lawn. Now, quit stalling.” Tony points at the mirror before moving to the toilet to sit back down. “I’m fully prepared to have Jarvis stalk you with whatever music annoys you the most until you shave that shit off.” 

His smile returns. “Darcy threatened to do the same thing to Steve. She said she’d use someone named Justin Bieber.”

Tony nods his approval. “An excellent choice, but you lack the cultural context to be sufficiently annoyed. Now,” he says, and here a demonic gleam appears in his eyes, “‘It’s a Small World’ on the other hand… That’s enough to drive Pepper nuts, and she’s the sanest person I know.”

He flicks his hand toward the ceiling. A moment later a cloyingly upbeat song fronted by a kids’ chorus singing of the state of the world begins. Bucky makes it through a verse and a half before he turns toward the sink, grimacing. As Tony revels in his triumph, cackling in glee on the toilet, Bucky takes one last drink from the whisky bottle, sucks in a deep, hopefully fortifying breath, and lifts his gaze.

He sees his mouth first, pinched amid, as Stark rightly said, the dead animal plastered to his face. Bucky grimaces at the scraggly beard. He can’t believe Darcy consented to kiss him with this on his face, let alone make out with him as she did just an hour ago. He needed to shave it, if only for her benefit.

Moving higher, he finds his nose much the same, but who cared about noses? The eyes mattered, the windows to the soul and all that. Bucky feels his begin to burn as he stalls on his nose. His jaw tightens, and his breath comes fast. He knows Tony watches him, though he makes a good show of lounging in increasing drunken revelry. Clenching his hands, he counts to three before closing the last few inches.

The sight that greets him shocks Bucky, his face as different as he anticipated yet more similar to the man that he used to be than he believed possible. Shadows circle his eyes, trauma staining his face bruise blue. The surrounding skin is taut and thin, scraped and burned away by Zola and Pierce and their monstrous chair. Deep furrows mar his formerly smooth forehead, harrowing his brow and weighing it down until it looms, heavy and dour, over the remainder of his face. But his breath catches at the sight of his eyes. The glass of the cryo tube last reflected them to Bucky, casting back a gaze as empty as the space between stars. No desert places here though, not now. Bucky sees recognition instead, anguish and hesitancy along with doubt and desperation, and, lurking beneath it all, he sees himself, worn and hard but discernable, detectable, present.

He can’t hold back the hard gasp of breath and the thick sob of relief at the sight of himself in the mirror. Lowering his head, he leans against the sink and cries. He hears Tony stand and move to the door, but he doesn’t pass through. Instead, he reaches for and opens the box at the edge of the vanity. From the corners of his eyes, Bucky sees him pull out a gleaming phone. Holding it out to Bucky, he says, “Rogers and the kid are already in if you want to talk to them. Or I can send in Pep.”

“No. No, that’s okay.” Bucky reaches for the still damp towel and rubs it over his face. It wasn’t as nice as those wipes that Darcy let him use in her car, but it sufficed, the lingering warmth and the soft cotton soothing his fraught nerves. He lowers the towel after a few moments and blows out a long breath. His reflection catches his eye again and he peers at it, his gaze steadier, as he says to Tony, “I think I’m going to be okay.”

To that, Tony says nothing. Bucky turns and finds himself the recipient of a quiet assessment, at least until they lock eyes. Then Tony smirks, shooting for casual, for cocky, but Bucky mastered that maneuver long before Tony was born so he sees the sentiment lurking beneath. “I think you might be, shocker of shocks. Which means I’m still in.”

Bucky lifts a brow in inquiry. 

“Finding Hydra,” Tony says as sharp smile appears on his face. “We can get them from here too. Chase the trails in the files that Romanov dumped, use what you know to find them and destroy them. Total obliteration. If we don’t…”

“I know.”

He knows and Tony knows, Bucky their method and Tony their victim. He knows that Steve and Darcy know too. Eventually they would come around. And if they didn’t… His eyes slide to the mirror, catch and hang upon his reflection. Eventually he’d be strong enough to leave, to protect what Hydra sought to destroy.

Looking back at Tony, Bucky nods. “I’m in.” He twists his mouth into something resembling a friendly smirk. “Now get the hell out of here so I can shave in peace.”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And no, there's no take backs. The beard is shaved and the hair is cut. Though my view on both is that they were clean, just not neat. Still, how it's cut is for the next chapter. :D
> 
> Also, because there was a question, Tinker is a reference to Tony in Iron Man 3 when he is not at all successfully dealing with his PTSD by tinkering in his workshop and building robots all night. He sees some of that same inability to deal due to PTSD in Bucky. :D


	17. Part Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Darcy see the shave and a hair cut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Robert Frost said, “Freedom lies in being bold.” The referenced war in Romania is WWI, which the country officially entered in 1916. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who left comments on the last part. I love writing Tony, especially the rapport that he's built with Bucky in this story. I hope to produce some feels with this chapter, so I hope you enjoy! One more to go.

And The Wounded Sing  
Part Sixteen

 

Laughter from Steve greets Bucky when he opens the apartment door two hours later. He stops in the threshold to listen, Steve sounding lighter than at any time since their reunion the month before. A second laugh follows, and the lightness becomes clear, the rich tenor recalling Sam’s voice on the phone. Bucky contemplates easing back out of the apartment, Steve certainly didn’t need an unbalanced assassin lurking about as he tried to court Sam, but he needed to change, at the very least to try on the skinny jeans in an attempt to fulfill Darcy’s lusty birthday dreams. Her acceptance of his beard demanded no less. And he knows, too, that Steve would want him to meet Sam, and what better time than when he finally looked civil and sane?

“I’m back,” he says, closing the door with an audible click.

“We’re in the kitchen.”

The lack of detectable tension or reserve in Steve’s voice encourages Bucky forward. He runs a hand over the back of his head as he goes. Pepper cut it short, as short as it had been during the war but with the front pushed up like Steve’s and Tony’s. She claimed he looked dashing and he trusted her assessment of his style, focused more on the strange sense of weightlessness about his head now. He hesitates to describe the feeling as freedom, the weight of his arm and the lines on his face arguments to the contrary. Bucky shied away from a full shave for that, a slick jaw too strange a counterpoint to a worn and weary face.

Lowering his hand, Bucky rounds the corner for the kitchen. He hears the clink of pots and pans, the sounds of dinner cooking, smells spaghetti sauce and garlic bread. Breathing in, he steps into the entrance and stops. Sam stands by the sink, watching Steve. His gaze slides over to Bucky and holds, widening, trailing from tip to toe, but Bucky stares at Steve, who stands before the stove, and waits, his heart beating fast.

Steve turns, a spoon in one hand and a smile on his face. He freezes as Sam did when he locks eyes with Bucky. But his gaze doesn’t just widen; his jaw drops, and he gapes, silent.

Eyes darting from Steve to Sam, Bucky lifts a hand and runs it over his hair again. “Ms. Potts did it.” He grimaces a bit at the vulnerable exposure of the nape of his neck. “She said it looked, you know, nice.”

Sam glances at Steve, his eyes still wide. Steve continues to gape, and for one terrifying second, his face wavers and Bucky thinks that he’s going to cry. Then his mouth snaps shut and his eyes return to normal and he gives a careless little shrug as he turns back to the stove to dip his spoon into the bubbling sauce.

“You’re such an ass,” Bucky mutters as he shakes his head. But he breathes easier, the tension in his chest loosening, abating even further when Steve glances at him from the corners of his eyes and smirks.

“I wouldn’t get too smug,” Bucky says. He leans against the doorframe and crosses his arms over his chest. “We used a picture of your dopey head as a model.”

Steve grins at him from around the spoon. Bucky rolls his eyes, catching, as he does, Sam staring at him. He no longer looks shocked and awed; instead he assesses Bucky with eyes as sharp and perceptive as he code name. A thread of unease winds it way through Bucky at that. He resists the urge to run his hand over his hair a third time, but he does straighten and uncrosses his arms, giving Sam a short nod as he does.

The acknowledgement spurs Steve to action. Ripping the spoon free, he turns toward them both and says, “Buck, this is Sam Wilson. Sam, Bucky Barnes.”

He looks from one to the other, the near wriggling ball of nerves that he had been when he’d first introduced Bucky to Peggy. And then as now Bucky had needed to make a good impression, to repair the damage done the night before from too much whisky and the lecherous ogling of his best pal’s girl. Carter had forgiven him, or at least she’d acknowledged his apology with a sharp quip and a cool arch of her brow, but she’d never liked him, Bucky unable to fix the poor first impression before he fell. 

He needed to here with Sam. He won’t, he can’t, be the one responsible for denying Steve some joy in his life.

“Glad you could come,” he says, looking at Sam. “Was there…” He trails off after a moment, unsure if Sam flew or drove or took a train and thus whether to ask about traffic. Lifting a hand, he scratches at the back of his head and scrambles for something, anything, resembling sane small talk, settling a few seconds later on, “Weather?”

He can’t restrain his wince in the shocked silence that follows. He sees Steve lifts his brows from the corners of his eyes, caught between pity at Bucky’s obvious social ineptitude and the need to laugh at the dumbass shit coming out of his friend’s mouth. Bucky clenches his jaw at the flush that heats the back of his neck. He’s about a second away from grabbing Steve’s stupid spoon and shoving it into his ear when Sam smiles, a loose, sunny grin, and says, “The weather was fine. Thank you for asking. This one,” he stops to jerk a thumb at Steve, “couldn’t be bothered.”

Steve stops gawking at Bucky to turn to Sam and narrow his eyes. “So that’s how it is?”

Sam’s grin broadens. “That is _exactly_ how it is. How you thought you could introduce us without thinking we’d team up against your tiny ass, I don’t even know. Add in some Natasha, man, and you’re in for a world of hurt.”

Bucky tenses at the mention of Natasha, but still latches onto the lifeline offered to him. “That’s his specialty. Well that, and pissing people off enough to want to punch him in the face.”

Sam laughs. “Oh, man. That I believe. Did he tell you how we first met? The only thing stopping me from doing just that was—”

“—the fact you were gasping on the ground like a dying fish,” Steve says with a grin.

“Of course I was, trying to keep up with your smug ass.” Shaking his head, Sam turns to Bucky. “Here I was, doing my normal jog, taking in the sunrise, the birds and the sights and what not, and this joker comes along at, like, supersonic speed, muttering ‘on your left, on your left.’ Thirteen miles in thirty minutes, man.”

Bucky looks at Steve and cocks a brow.

Groaning, Steve turns back to the stove. “Don’t start.”

Sam eyes them both. “What?”

Now Bucky shakes his head. “Thirteen miles.”

“It was a jog,” Steve gripes, stirring the sauce just a little too hard in his annoyance. 

Bucky leans against the doorway again. “Right. A jog. You sure it’s not old age catching up with you?”

As Sam starts to laugh, Steve turns toward him, all sputtering and indignant. “Old age? Old… _You’re_ the oldest one here. Old— Any time, any place, old man. I’ll show you how slow I am.”

Bucky glances at Sam and grins. “And my work here is done.” His smile slips, nerves loosening his grip, but he holds it in place as he gives Sam another nod. “Thanks, again, for coming.”

Sam’s quiet a moment, a dash of sobriety shading his smile. But his eyes remain kind if pensive as they regard Bucky. “Thank you for calling.”

Bucky nods again. He looks away and eases back from the door. This was as good a start as he could hope for, Sam amenable to Bucky, working with him, helping him along with some quips and banter. Best to save the heavy stuff for later. “I, uh, I should go change. Probably take me the rest of the night to get into those jeans Darcy bought.” 

“You want some dinner?” Steve asks as he turns for the hall.

Bucky shakes his head. “You two eat.”

“Buck—”

He stops and looks at Steve. “I already ate with Bruce and Ms. Potts. Plus, there’s gonna be food at the party. You give me any more, I’m not gonna be able to fit into those pants Darcy got me.”

Steve holds his gaze a moment before nodding. Bucky does too, once at Steve and once more at Sam before turning again and finally escaping down the hall.

*

In his room, he searches through and sorts the three bags of clothes bought for him by Darcy and Thor. He tries everything on, even the velvet smoking jacket and leather pants. These he sets in the discard pile, significantly smaller than the keep pile, the majority of the clothes acceptable both in fit and style, a mix of basics, socks and underwear, pajamas and workout gear, along with a variety of shirts and pants. Only one goes in the ruined pile, a blue cashmere sweater that snags on his elbow and rips before he can tug it free. Each piece forces Bucky before the mirror, forces him to assess and decide, to confront himself, all of himself, from tip to toe. With each item, the disconnect between the man he sees in the mirror and the one he envisions in his mind resolves until he no longer expects the grim frown of the Solider or the spectre of the lost golden boy but him, now, neither Soldier nor boy but, it seems, Bucky still.

He settles on the skinny jeans for the party, not the hardship he envisioned, the jeans less like the miniature monstrosities he pictured upon first mention and more similar in fit and stretch to his combat pants. He wears his boots too, no other shoe option available, and a white long-sleeved shirt so soft that, for a long moment, he contemplates abandoning the party altogether so he can crawl into bed and burrow in the softness. But he doesn’t, Darcy waiting for him, and the rest of the team too, the others here becoming his friends as much as Steve’s or Darcy’s. The notion still surprises, people liking him, some loving him, all helping him, giving him this, not just a place to sleep but one in which he might belong.

Checking the time, Steve and Sam already gone for the party, Bucky grabs the last shirts from his bed before crossing to his closet. He takes a moment to gaze at the goods arranged before him, at the beginnings of _stuff_ that Darcy said he would attain. Then he freezes, remembering. He had stuff, stuff that had not been lost to the torments of time as he believed upon remembering, but gathered neatly into a cardboard box for him by Steve. Breath catching in his chest, Bucky shoves the shirts onto the shelf before him before scanning the rest of the closet. He finds the box in the back corner, tucked beneath a spare blanket for his bed. His pulse ticks up at the sight of it. The last time he had seen it he’d destroyed his bathroom, Bucky reeling from his nightmares and his memories and hours from a breakdown. He couldn’t handle the proof that the box contained, the proof of what he had lost and of what he had now become. 

Perhaps now he could.

His heart races at the thought but his hands feel steady. He had talked with Tony despite his sins and he had kissed Darcy despite his fears and he had looked into the mirror but he hadn’t woken up, he still remained, _they_ still remained, so he reaches out now, grabbing the box and pulling it from the closet.

Turning, he makes his way to the bed. He sets the box down, slowly, carefully. Whether he does so from the value or the danger of the cargo he doesn’t know. Easing down onto the bed, Bucky draws in a preparatory breath, but only one, before opening the box. Freedom lied in being bold; he could no longer remain shackled to the past, either the good or the bad, not if he wanted a life here with Darcy and Steve.

Peering inside, he spies a motley mix of possessions. He reaches first for the photographs, one in a frame, the others loosely bundled, tied with twine. He falters at the first picture at the top of the pile, one of him and Becca on her eighteenth birthday. Even in black and white, the boy in the photograph stands so bright and bold. Closing his eyes, Bucky breathes in and out, in and out, in and out until the stirring emotions subside. Then he opens his eyes and gazes once more upon the picture. He remembers the celebration, a small one with his folks and Becca, with Steve and some of Becca’s friends and Charley Regan, her two year steady. A heart defect kept him out of the war. Bucky wonders now if they ever married. He hopes they did, Charley good, deserving of Becca and Becca deserving of happiness.

Hand shaking, Bucky places the picture in the corner of his corkboard beneath the picture of the dancing bird. He knows the photograph in the frame, his parents stoic and steady before their first house in Brooklyn, his ma huge in her pregnancy with him. They’d fled Romania during its first offensive in 1916, wanting more for him than death and destruction. What would they think if they knew what he became, if they knew that death had found him despite all their efforts? The thought makes him sick, makes him grateful they were spared at least this. To them, he may have died, but he died a hero, the day before Steve, helping to save the world from the monsters that lurked in the dark. 

He trembles at the thoughts, at the vision of them and his sister receiving the notification, first for him and then for Steve, the Barnes family the only family that he had left. Breathing in again, Bucky sets the picture by the box and lays the bundle on top. He reaches out to close the flaps, to wait for tomorrow to continue, for Steve or Darcy or the both of them to keep him grounded in the present as he delved into the past, when his eye catches on the worn felt of a jeweler’s box in the top left corner.

He expects his hand to shake as he reaches inside, but it doesn’t. Yet his heart races as he cracks open the box, as the first gleam of light glints off the silver chain inside. The medal sits upon the ancient foam, St. Michael still visible despite years of pleas and prayers for protection, first from his father and then from Bucky himself, the medal passed to him when he turned seventeen. The dragon, though, looks less like a dragon and more like a snake. Or an arm, and a shudder runs through him as he thinks it but still he thinks it, of Hydra. His ma had pitched a fit when Bucky left it in Brooklyn before shipping out, but he hadn’t wanted to lose it in some mud hole in Europe. Perhaps if he had… but he shakes his head before he even finishes the thought. If he had, he would have lost it in some mud hole in France, or if not a mud hole in France, then an icy Swiss ravine or to the claws of Hydra after they drug him into their darkness, and then he would have lost this, not faith, faith burned from him along with his memory, but family, his father and his mother and his sister, Steve then and now, and Darcy too, those that saved him with their love and their light from his perdition.

Standing, Bucky unwinds the chain from around the foam and slips the medal over his head as he turns and walks from the room.

*

The plan forms as he walks down the stairs to the common room floor. Or not so much a plan as a dawning realization of what awaits him and Darcy if he walks into the common room without a warning to her as to his new appearance. Tony swore he would keep his mouth shut, but Bucky thinks now he swore so he could capture each moment in triplicate on audio, video, and pictures, perhaps for the sake of posterity, but, likelier, so he could rib the shit out of both him and Darcy.

He hears music as he opens the door to the common room floor, thankfully not the heavy metal preferred by Tony. Sliding his phone from his pocket, he pulls up the scant list of contacts and clicks Darcy’s name. 

She answers after a few rings with a cautious, “Hello?”

“Hey. It’s Bucky.” 

She says nothing to his greeting. Bucky frowns at the silence and starts toward the door when she whispers, “What do I call you?”

“What?”

“My nickname for you. What is it?”

Bucky stops halfway down the hall. “Bear. Darcy, what—” Her audible sigh cuts off the question, prompts another. “Are you okay? What—” 

“No, no,” she says quickly. “I’m okay. It’s just the display said ‘Bucky,’ but I didn’t know you had a phone, or how your number got into my phone, because _someone_ —” She pauses here, and he hears a thwack followed by a groan, he thinks, from Tony “—didn’t tell me. I thought it was some octopus trick.”

Frowning again, Bucky leans against the wall. “Octopus?”

“You know, ‘They Who Must Not Be Named.’ The hidden hailing evil. You know, they really need to review their mythology because that symbol is so _not_ their name, but, like, some kind of creepy zombie octopus.”

He smiles despite the references to Hydra. “A creepy zombie octopus?”

“Totally. So what’s the what, phone man? Steve said you were still trying stuff on when he left.”

“Yeah. That’s why I’m calling. I tried on your jeans—” He stops, smiling again, as she releases a small squeal of delight. “They’re… interesting.”

“You don’t have to wear them.”

“I know. I just—” He releases a sigh, hoping for frustration. “I don’t know if this is what they’re supposed to look like. Can you—”

“Yep. Totally on it. It’s—” She pauses again to say to someone on the other end, “No. He’s fine. Just flummoxed by modern fashion.” Turning back to the phone, she says, “Give me, like, five, okay?”

“Okay.”

She hangs up and Bucky does too. But he doesn’t pocket his phone. Straightening from the wall, he pulls up the camera feature and waits. He wants to smooth his hand over his hair again, but he doesn’t. He just stands and he waits, drawing in a slow breath, and after a moment, he hears the click of heels on tile and Darcy hum along to whatever song plays back in the common room. A second later, she rounds the corner. 

Bucky sees her first, Darcy bent over her phone as she progresses down the hall. He loses the breath that he drew in at the sight of her. She wears a plum-colored dress that wraps around her waist and silver sandals and lipstick the color of raspberries, and he almost can’t speak she looks so gorgeous, blissful and beatific, and in the heartbeat it takes her to look up at him, he feels once more like the golden boy from Brooklyn.

Darcy freezes when she spots him. Her eyes go huge and her jaw drops, and Bucky lets her look for one long moment before he lifts his hand, points his phone at her, and says, “Say cheese.”

The click of the camera spurs Darcy into action. “How?” she asks, striding forward. “No, I know how. When? No. Who? _Jesus_ ,” she mutters as she reaches him. She gapes again, her hands up as though she wants to touch him, but she doesn’t know where. Smiling, Bucky slides his phone back into his pocket. Darcy shakes her head a second time. Her eyes go from his hair to his face to his chest to his legs and back again, an endless, ceaseless circle of awe. “I can’t— Oh my _god_ , Bucky.” She ducks around him to check out the back. “You’re— I _knew_ it,” she says, popping back before him, her eyes bright and cheeks flushed. “I knew there was something. Tony was being too… Tony. Holy _shit_. I thought with the hand in the hair that you’d, you know, trim it, but this…” She shakes her head once more as she looks at him.

He can’t help but smile at her reaction. “So I take it you like it?”

“I— Do you?” she asks, suddenly intent. “Because I know I was all, like, ‘beard is weird,’ but if that’s what you—”

Bucky shakes his head. “It was weird. Tony called it a dead animal.” He shrugs as his smile turns wry. “I can’t say he was wrong.”

Her own smile forms as she peers up at him. “No. You really can’t. And yes,” she says, reaching for him, letting him pluck the phone from her hands to slide into his other pocket, “I like it. I like _you_ , beard or no beard. I— Holy shit, bear—” Darcy stops then, suddenly. Blinking once, she looks at him again, at his short hair and shaved face. “Well, I guess I can’t call you that anymore.”

There’s a moment of silence and then her expression flickers and her smile slips. As it does, he can’t help but recall the last time he changed, choosing his memories by choosing the chair, and her hesitancy, her fear of him, the man that he had been with her, being lost. Reaching out, he cups the side of her face, slides his thumb across her cheek. “You can. I’m still me, Darcy—”

“No, no, no. I know. I know. This isn’t that. It’s…” She stops again to breathe in, to bite down on her bottom lip, to stave off the emotion swelling within her, bringing tears to her eyes. “I… God, I didn’t know. I wanted to, Bucky. I tried to, I did, but I didn’t know. You…” She shivers and her hands grip his arms tight, but no force underlies her voice when she continues, each word soft, shaking him when she speaks. “They hurt you so much. They—You were fighting so hard, just to— just to _be_ , just to be you, but you couldn’t see how… _good_ you are, and I didn’t, god, I didn’t know if you ever would, and I—”

The levee breaks, her chest hitching in a sob as she starts to cry. Bucky pulls her close, wraps his arms around her shoulders and back. Darcy curls into him, shuddering, clutching at his shirt. He kisses the top of her head, once and then again, drawing a hand up and down her back in slow, soothing circles. “I did because you were there. You said you trusted me because everything I’ve done since I met you is to help you. It’s the same with me for you. You could’ve walked away, and I know some think you should’ve, including me. But you didn’t. Not at the diner, not in the chair, not when I’ve been here and there, up and down, past and present.” He pulls back then until he can peer down at her. She tilts her head up toward him, and Bucky feels ripped apart and made whole again when they lock eyes. “You and Steve, working so hard to make me a person.” He lifts a hand and brushes a few of the tears from her face, feels his own form as the reality of the statement hits home. “I think maybe you did.”

“ _You_ did. You did. I just…” She drifts off, contemplating a moment, then a sly glint appears in her eyes. “I just sat there and watched.” 

He laughs, remembering. “Well, as you said, there’s nothing you do bet—”

He can’t finish, Darcy leaning up to kiss him then. She winds her arms around his neck, presses herself close. She tastes like chocolate and sticky gloss, and he has to resist the urge to haul her up for a better angle, Darcy in a dress and the rest of the team just a few feet away. She makes this angle suit, running her nails along the back of his neck and arching up into him until he lets out a soft moan. Then she pulls back, smiling as she spots the dazed look in his eyes. 

“I think, maybe, there are some things I do better.”

“Yeah, yes. Yes. I mean… That I have to agree with.”

Darcy laughs at his stunned stuttering and Bucky does too. Untwining one of her arms from his neck, she rubs at a stray spot of gloss from the corner of his mouth. She blushes as he twists his head to press a kiss to the palm of her hand only to roll her eyes a moment later as he sends her a smug little smirk. “Come on, Romeo.” Pulling back, she grabs his hand and tugs him toward the sounds of music and laughter in the common room. “Let’s cut some cake.”

*


	18. Part Seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party, part one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... it's been a while. April is certainly the cruellest month, particularly the last half in which I was working too much and then got sick. So here's half of the last chapter because I'll likely need another month to finish the last scene as the next couple of weeks are going to be a work nightmare too. 
> 
> No Age of Ultron spoilers here aside from the fact that Clint has a farm, but it’s just the farm, nothing else from his storyline appears. Some references to Fraction’s run on Hawkeye here because that is my favorite Clint. Also, no offense if you are a Red Sox or Giants fan; if you are, you’d understand why an ancient New Yorker & Dodgers fan like Bucky would hate both. ☺ The phrase ‘diving into the wreck’ has been borrowed from the Adrienne Rich poem of the same name.

And The Wounded Sing  
Part Seventeen

 

The party proceeds well at first, as well as Bucky can hope. He sticks close by Darcy and Steve at first but wanders off after a while to talk to Pepper and Bruce and Tony. He even talks to Jane, the conversation excruciatingly awkward for the first ten minutes, Jane clearly attempting to do with Bucky as what Bucky did with Sam earlier, repair the damage of a bad first impression, yet not knowing, like him, the slightest clue how to do so, at least until Bucky remembers Darcy’s tip and asks Jane about wormholes. She latches onto the lifeline and launches into a thirty-minute explanation of astronomy and physics and bridges across the stars that ends with Bucky gaping at her in awe and Jane actually sending him a real smile. He schedules his next yoga session with Bruce and Pepper, and witnesses the official pardon of Tony by Darcy after he presents her with a nameplate for her new office: Darcy Lewis, Official Avenger. Bucky jokes again with Sam and he learns about the Nine Realms from Thor and he eats too much food and laughs as both Sam and Darcy school Steve in consecutive games of Mario Kart and he memorizes each pop culture reference he hears to quiz Jarvis about later, and he judges overall the party and his presence there to be a success, at least until Clint Barton and Natasha Romanov arrive. 

He tenses as he sees them, first the man from Steve’s and Darcy’s photos, no bandage on his nose this time, just a few bruises and a dark five-o’clock shadow, and then at Natasha, strolling in after Clint. Her eyes immediately find Bucky and he watches her run away, taunting him with a smile for her last shot. He feels as she goes, and he knows that he shouldn’t, weapons don’t feel but he feels anyway, and the names whisper in the back of his mind, shame and rage, shame and rage, fueling his desire to kill.

“Bucky?”

He jerks away from the soft touch on his arm. In the distance, Natasha tenses and so does Clint a second later, his gaze shifting from an approaching Steve to her. Then Darcy shifts into view and blocks them from Bucky’s sight, lifting herself on her toes until she can look him in the eye.

“Hey. Are you okay?”

Bucky stares at her a moment before giving her a slow nod. “Yeah. I just… I just remembered something.” He looks past her then, sees Steve introduce Sam to Clint. Steve stands with his back to Bucky, right between him and Natasha. Like Darcy, Bucky doesn’t think it’s an accident, not with the stiff line of Steve’s spine.

Darcy glances over her shoulder at the group across the room as she lowers herself back down to the ground. Tony cocks a brow at them from the couch, but Darcy waves him off. Turning back to Bucky, she says, “You want to head out?”

This brings his full attention to her. “This is your party.”

“And I partied,” she says, reaching for his hand. “Cake has been eaten and Tony’s been forgiven and I am officially older, so all the party requirements have been fulfilled.”

Bucky’s shaking his head before she even finishes. He won’t take her from this, her life. 

Darcy closes her mouth, presses it flat at his refusal. She scans his face and the set of his jaw, the line of his shoulders and the stiffness in his spine. Her hand tightens around his as she draws in close enough to murmur, “You don’t have to do this today. You’ve already done so much. Today _and_ yesterday. You—”

But Darcy stops in her appeal as Thor approaches from the side. He nods at Darcy, he and Jane and Darcy not quite at the same level of forgiveness as Darcy and Tony, before turning to look at Bucky.

“James, I wondered if I may introduce you to our comrade Clint. He wishes to meet you. I said I would, as the saying goes, ‘put in a good word’ for him with you.”

Bucky looks across the room again. Clint stands alone now, Steve, Sam, and Natasha nowhere in sight. His eyes are closed. Bucky watches him pull in a deep breath and then another, muttering to himself as he does. Something, Bucky thinks, about being casual.

Darcy follows his gaze, snorting when she sees Clint. 

“What?” Bucky asks, looking at her.

She turns back toward him, her eyes bright with amusement. “Barton. He’s, like, five seconds from total fanboy meltdown.”

Bucky frowns at that. “What? Why?” 

Darcy’s face softens. She rubs her thumb across the back of his hand, her voice soft as she says, “It’s like I said, dude. You’re a legend. _Especially_ to Clint. You’re like… You’re like his Madonna. His Dazzy,” she quickly amends. 

“Really?”

She starts to smile. “Yep.”

“Even after…?”

Darcy shares a look with Thor, and it’s then he remembers what Steve said, how Thor’s brother took control of Clint, used him in his fight to take over the world. Natasha saved Clint, as Steve saved him, bringing him back to himself.

“Especially after,” Darcy says now. “So you want to…?”

Bucky glances back at Clint. He talks now to Erik, and Bucky recalls how he, too, suffered at the hands of Loki. Something in the way he stares at Erik, solemn and serious, his body tilted toward him, almost to shield Erik from the rest of the room, makes Bucky nod.

Thor claps a hand on his back. “Excellent. He will be most pleased.” 

Extending a hand, he waits for Darcy and Bucky to start across the room before he follows. Tony sits up as they pass by the couch. His eyes dart between Clint and Bucky, and an evil grin forms as he pulls his phone from his back pocket, but quelling looks from both all three cause Tony to shove the phone back into his pocket and slump, pouting, back onto the couch. Clint notices their approach. He straightens, but he doesn’t turn from Erik, which reinforces the burgeoning idea in Bucky to make this man his friend.

“Clinton! I am happy to see you again, my friend.”

Both Clint and Erik look up at Thor’s greeting. Erik takes in all three, Bucky between Darcy and Thor, Darcy holding his hand, the St. Michael’s medal dangling from his neck. He nods at Bucky once, his gaze both distant and keen, before mumbling goodbye to Clint and shuffling away, over to Jane by the food table. Clint and Thor shake hands then Clint turns to Darcy and grins.

“Twenty-five, huh? Guess I got to stop calling you girly-girl.”

Darcy shrugs. “You can, or you can pull a Tony, who told me that I could try to pull ‘kid’ from his cold, dead hands.” Her lips quirk up into a cheeky smile then. “I understand if you don’t stop. You old timers need to stick together.” 

Clint’s eyes widen. “Old? _Old_?!”

“Speaking of,” Darcy says, laughing at Clint’s spluttering, “Clint, this is Bucky. You know who he is. Bucky, this is Clint Barton, the one I kicked in the balls three times when he tried to show me how to punch.”

Bucky turns to her rather than Clint and cocks a brow. “Old?”

Darcy shrugs again, her face flushed with mirth and mischief as she peers up at him. Bucky can’t resist this siren’s call, a small smile coming despite the presence of Clint, new and unknown and watching their exchange. Lifting herself up again, Darcy kisses his cheek before stepping back and releasing his hand.

“You two talk,” she says, looking from one to the other. “Brooklyn, sharp shooting, ‘get off my lawn’ old guy rage, an epic love for pizza, and a mutual hatred of the Yankees. _Lots_ to discuss.” She shoots them both a breezy grin before reaching around Bucky to grab Thor’s hand. “Come on, Hammer Time. Let’s go do some shots.”

With that, she drags Thor away. Bucky and Clint stand in their wake, silent, each not looking at the other. Clint shifts in place, shoving his hands into his pockets only to take one out to rub at the back of his neck. From the corners of his eyes, Bucky sees Clint open his mouth and almost speak, deciding against at the last moment. As his mouth closes with a grimace, Bucky looks over at Darcy, who watches them from her place by the bar. He spots the worried slant to her brows, though she tries to smooth it away with a smile when she catches Bucky looking. He feels Clint watching too, Clint who Darcy called for help when Bucky floundered from the revelation about Zola, Clint who cares enough about her to try to teach her self-defense. There was no poor first impression to counter here, not like with Peggy or Sam, or even with Natasha, if they ever progressed to a one-on-one exchange, but the need to impress still applied, Clint Darcy’s friend and someone who, as strange as it seemed, actually wanted to meet him. 

Breathing in, Bucky glances again at Clint. He watches Bucky with a wary, hopeful look, one that prompts Bucky to vow _not_ to be the same dick to Clint that Howard Stark had been to him. 

“So,” he says slowly, “pizza.”

Clint blinks at Bucky, stunned, perhaps, at actual communication being initiated by Bucky, then the utter ridiculousness of the attempt processes, and Clint starts to smile. “Yeah. Pizza.”

Bucky nods. “But not the Yankees?”

“Hell no. Grew up in Iowa and thereabouts. Royals fan.”

Bucky sighs in relief. “Thank Christ. I thought you were gonna say the Giants or, worse, fucking Boston, and then I would’ve had to walk away.”

Clint’s smile grows. “Understandable.”

“But now you’re in Brooklyn?”

Clint nods. “Got a building in Bed-Stuy.”

At that, Bucky frowns. “Steve said you had a farm.”

“I do. It’s upstate. It’s not much,” he adds, his smile faltering a bit, “but the space… it helps clear my head when I need it.”

Bucky nods again, understanding the need to retreat from everything, even, perhaps, yourself, the Tower his refuge from the world. To leave it, to dive back into the wreck, into the death and the danger in the world, required tremendous motivation and, equally, courage.

“Steve, uh, he told me you were there until recently… until you left to help me.” Bucky pauses to glance at Clint, to assess his acceptance to this shift in conversational tone. When Clint lifts a polite brow, Bucky proceeds. “Can I ask why you did?” 

Clint looks away then, past Bucky to peruse the rest of the room. Shrugging, he says, “Steve asked.” Bucky thinks he’s going to leave it at that, and he could have, this understandable as Steve inspired loyalty in all, but Clint pulls in a sharp breath and adds after a moment, “Steve was one of the first to stand by me after Loki. Him and Natasha.”

“So you owed him.” 

Clint shrugs again. “Maybe. But I wanted to.” At Bucky’s steady stare, Clint looks away. A flush colors the tips of his ears. “Darcy may have mentioned it,” he mumbles, his gaze pointed straight down at the ground. “Or Steve. How you, you know… How you were…”

It takes Bucky a moment to understand. When he does, he the Madonna, the Dazzy for Clint, he too flushes and looks away. “Uh, yeah. They may have. A bit.”

The awkward silence settles between them again. Bucky glances over at Darcy, thankfully finds her attention focused on Thor and his glee at taking a flaming shot, giving him time, perhaps, to alleviate this discomfort, this strange reality of ‘hey, I used to be your idol, but now I’m a broken shell of a man.’ 

Before he can, Clint does.

“So, uh,” he beings, drawing in a deep, preparatory breath, “my parents died when I was young. And my brother and me, we… well, we grew up in a circus.” 

Bucky blinks at that. “Really?”

Clint looks up, a small smile on his face. “Yeah. Not the Ringling Bros. Or Barnum and whatnot. These were criminals. Misfits. Outcasts.” He shrugs again as his smile fades. “They taught me what I know, the sharpshooting and bow work, but they weren’t, you know, a family. Not really. My brother was. For a while. When he was there. But mostly I was on my own.” He looks past Bucky again, out to the room, his gaze sharp and focused, the eyes of a spy, of a sniper. “Some kid left a few comics behind at one of the shows. I found ‘em when I was cleaning up. They were of you and Steve and the Commandos. Must have been his dad’s growing up. I don’t know. But,” he continues, turning again to Bucky, “they made an impression. You read about this guy who had life going for him, you don’t expect his best friend to be some scrawny Irish punk. But he is. And then this guy had life throw him the absolute worst shit, and he got back up and did good? It makes an impression.” 

Bucky looks away. His breath quickens and he feels his pulse increase. Darcy had said the same thing in her apartment, studying him in school, choosing him over the other Commandos, even over Steve. Licking his lips, he tries for casual and fails. “I, uh, haven’t done much good lately.”

“That’s not what I hear.” When Bucky meets his eyes, Clint clarifies. “Steve told me about the diner, how you saved Darcy.”

“She wouldn’t have been in danger if I hadn’t been there.”

“No. But you didn’t have to save her. You didn’t know her then. But you did.”

Bucky shrugs in lieu of a response. He glances away, off to the side, over to Darcy, who peruses the food table now, her lips pursed in concentration as she decides.

“Can I ask why you did?” Clint asks after a moment. 

Bucky says nothing, his gaze still focused on Darcy. Going to that diner had been a mistake. He had followed an impulse, a wisp of a memory that fused with a gnawing hunger that compelled him to seek out something more than gas station sustenance. Something edging normalcy, of the life that he’d lost and was desperate to reclaim. Yet Hydra had followed him, four in the corner, maybe more in the back, and he knew now that they always would, he their asset, the one who had shaped the past century yet shattered the next when he had let go of the beam and dove into the wreck after Steve. And in that moment, Bucky despaired, his mouth watering and stomach growling at the smell of the pancakes and eggs before him, food that he couldn’t eat, Hydra in the diner and possibly interfering with the food, yet food he desired to eat, the dry taste of jerky lingering in his mouth. Bucky had looked at the fork and the knife and the plate and the cup, debating, despondent, and then, feeling the eyes upon him, up at her. 

Darcy reaches for a cupcake. She shoves the whole thing into her mouth upon straightening. His lips twitch as she starts to chew, her head bopping to some melody she heard in her head. She had almost run when Bucky reached for his knife in the diner, his instincts screaming civilian as he looked at her but also leading him here to this diner and to Hydra and so not to be trusted. But she hadn’t run. Somehow Darcy had seen past his wretchedness and surliness and fear and seen _him_ , or who at least the man he used to be. 

And she’d decided to help.

They happen to lock eyes then, and his smile grows as her epically full cheeks go red. Her eyes slide over to Clint then where they narrow, and Bucky watches, grinning, as she reaches for a second cupcake, jamming as much as she can into her mouth beside the first. Clint starts to laugh and Bucky does too. Triumphant, Darcy glances at him and wags her brows before turning away, over to Jane, who shakes her head as she takes Darcy and her even more epically full cheeks in.

“She made an impression,” Bucky says, gazing at Darcy.

Clint says nothing to the revelation. Bucky feels his stare instead, Clint assessing him, whatever adoration that he may possess for Bucky tempered by his ties to Darcy and to Steve, by his place on the team and his life as a spy and the utter implausibility of Bucky’s resurrection in both body and mind. Bucky allows the doubt, understanding, familiar with the feeling. 

The understanding, though, he receives a moment later he doubts. 

“You’re welcome to the farm. You know, if you want to get out of the Tower, get some fresh air or something.” Clint shrugs as Bucky looks at him, his eyes wide. “You could come with Darcy. The place is off the books, so there’s no trace for Hydra to follow. At least not a clear one. So you’d be safe. Or as safe as you can be with Hydra still out in the world.”

The offer hovers in the air between them, advanced but unaccepted. Bucky continues to stare, as thrown now as by Thor before, near instant in his acceptance.

“Why?” he asks, trying not to sound combative.

Clint shrugs again, nonchalant, but Bucky sees a hint of a smile about his mouth. “You grow up with misfits and criminals, you get pretty good at spotting them. And,” he adds with a slight tilt of his head, “Steve trusts you.”

“Steve’s biased.”

“So’s everyone. Doesn’t mean he’s wrong.”

But Bucky refuses to relent. “Natasha thinks he is.”

The hint of a smile vanishes, and Clint’s gaze sharpens upon Bucky. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I have eyes. I saw her when she came in, how she looked at me, how Steve stood her down.”

Clint snorts at that and relaxes. “If you think he stood her down—”

“You know what I mean,” Bucky says, turning toward him. “They’re not here now. You expect me to believe that it’s not about me? That they’re off exchanging recipes right about now?”

“I hope not. Nat’s a shit cook.”

Bucky narrows his eyes at the sass. A flash of contrition appears in Clint’s eyes as he angles his body toward Bucky. “Seriously. She’s passing along some intel that we found on our trip. That’s all. It’s about Hydra, but it’s not about you.”

Bucky says nothing, just holds his gaze.

“It’s not,” Clint says.

Bucky lifts his chin into the air.

“It’s not,” Clint says again, yet he starts to squirm as he does, just a shade, enough for Bucky to notice. He feels his jaw start to clench, but then Clint’s gaze slides over to Darcy, now cupcake free and smiling as she regales Erik with her story about punching Clint repeatedly in the balls, and he goes limp, shame flooding him, shame and guilt at sullying her party with this, with Hydra, with his inability to let everything go and just _live_.

“Never mind,” he mutters, dropping his gaze. “I shouldn’t—”

“I’ll tell you. If you want to know. Because I know—” He stops, his mouth snapping shut. Bucky peers up at him, finds him breathing in slow and long. Clint glances across the room again, not at Darcy, but at Thor now. He takes a few seconds to calm, perhaps to gather his thoughts, then he begins again. “I get wanting to lash out. To do something to take back the control you lost. Or at least to make it feel like you’re not spinning out anymore. But—”

“I don’t want to lash out.”

Clint meets his eyes.

“I don’t,” Bucky says to the skepticism he sees. “I never wanted to fight. I don’t want to now.”

“But?” Clint asks, cocking a brow.

Bucky doesn’t respond. He contemplates walking away, no obligation to explain his thoughts, Clint not his friend, just Darcy’s and Steve’s, just someone who idolized him growing up and who sympathizes with the wretched turns in his life, Clint suffering the horrifying loss of will as well. Breathing in then, Bucky works to loosen his jaw, to shuck the tension and mistrust within him. He glances again at Darcy and Thor, hears Tony still on the couch yammering to Pepper, then locks eyes again with Clint.

“If you know anything about Hydra,” he says slowly, “you know they won’t let that happen. Me leaving the fight. They’ll come, they _are_ coming, he is, and they’ll…” Bucky trails off, his guts twisting at the possibilities. His gaze drifts back to Darcy, and he sees her standing across the room, he sees her strapped to a table, he sees her dead in a ditch or with a gun in her hand, ready to comply. “I can’t let that happen. But she doesn’t…” He stops again, unable to articulate, how she doesn’t understand the risk, how he should leave to spare her the cost, but how he can’t, each day with her a resurrection of self and soul. “She said I should live my life,” he continues, his voice soft, “and I want to. I do. I do, but if I stay—” Bucky twists his mouth, torn between his twin desires, to stay and to live or to leave and to save.

Clint’s quiet a moment then he releases a small huff of breath, something that might be a sigh or even, perhaps, a laugh. “You sound just like Nat. In the early days,” he clarifies as Bucky’s eyes go wide. His expression softens with recollection, and he shakes his head. “She didn’t want to get close. Not at first. She said it was because ‘love was for children,’ that it distracted from the mission, that I’d be a better agent, more efficient, more lethal, if I shut down like her. It took me too long to realize it was a crock of shit, that she was… not scared. Just full of doubt. She didn’t think that it would last, her freedom. She thought she’d be taken back. Or that I’d be taken. Or that I’d be killed just for being near her. For caring about her.” Clint pauses and a rueful smile appears on his face. “And I almost was, just not from where she expected.” 

“From Loki.”

Clint nods. His smile fades, his mouth flattens, and his hand twitches by his side. His gaze darts to Erik then to Thor then down to the ground, and Bucky wonders what he remembers, whether he knows what he did or if the time in which Loki used him exists in his brain as a lost blue haze. Bucky refrains from asking, waiting instead for Clint to continue. After a moment, he does.

“When it happened, you know what she did?”

Bucky shakes his head.

“She saved the world. She stood toe-to-toe with that psychotic devil spawn _and_ with Banner and his Other Guy to get me back, and she won. And that’s what you’ll do, too. And what I’ll do and what Thor will do and Steve and Tony and Natasha. Because we’re Avengers.” He pauses then and meets Bucky’s eyes. “All of us.”

His hand trembles as he looks at Clint. Bucky ducks his head, blinking back the hot prick of tears in his eyes. He clears his throat and pulls in a slow steadying breath that steadies, that stills for the moment the tug of war within him. “Thanks,” he says, glancing up at Clint. “For that and the invitation.”

Clint shrugs, not to dismiss the gratitude, to downplay the seriousness of the moment, to give Bucky another moment to collect himself. “It’s no problem.” 

Drawing in another breath, Bucky straightens and attempts a smile, attempts to let everything go and just live. “You, uh, you want to grab a beer and play darts or something?”

Clint straightens too, his face brightening with pleasure as he starts to grin. “Yeah. Yeah, I would.”

*


	19. Part Eighteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party, part two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. May was nuts with work, and I struggled some to get everything in this chapter right. Hopefully, I did. 
> 
> The sentence about compliance being rewarded is, of course, a paraphrase of that moment in Agents of Shield. The jaws of death line is also paraphrased from Captain America. Together or not all is a riff off of Doctor Who and Amy & Rory’s final story arc. Seriously, just listen to “Together or Not at All” from Season 6’s soundtrack when you get to the Bucky & Steve part (it was on repeat as I was writing). The ‘kill me with her brain’ line is a reference to Firefly.

And The Wounded Sing  
Part Eighteen

 

Bucky plays two games of darts with Clint and wins both of them, his enhancements from Hydra giving him a slight edge over Clint and thus the victories. He understands after though why Clint is an Avenger, the man as good as a name like Hawkeye suggests, far better than Bucky had been despite his superiors in the Army claiming that Bucky had been one of the best they’d ever seen in Basic. Despite Clint’s urging, Bucky bows out after two games. He feels the party beginning to overwhelm. He lasted far longer than he thought, having talked more and smiled more than he ever imagined that he could upon waking in the chair, his memories restored. Waving goodbye, Bucky retreats to a clump of couches in the far corner of the room. Darcy quirks a brow at him as he sits on one that faces the party. He nods his okay as he settles down, and she smiles before turning back to Pepper and their conversation about colleges in New York.

Ten minutes later they return to the party, or at least Natasha and Sam do. Bucky waits for Steve, but he doesn’t follow, and the unease that developed within Bucky at Clint’s revelation of intel resurges. He glances at Natasha and Sam to try to gauge their mood, and thus try to determine the kind of intel she and Clint had brought in, but they give him nothing, Sam immediately swept out of Bucky’s line of sight into a conversation with Tony and Natasha too cool and composed for Bucky to glean anything from. He watches her anyway, the comparison that Clint had made between them compelling him to do so. She stops by Clint, now by the food and stuffing his face with miniature sausages. They communicate something in hand gestures, no, in sign language. Clint points to him, avid, smiling despite the sausages, and after Natasha wrinkles her nose at him, she turns to follow his gaze. They lock eyes, and Bucky tries his best to stay calm, to keep his heartbeat slow so as not to alert Jarvis and thus not to cause a commotion. He pulls in a deep breath and gives her a slow nod, and after a moment, she returns the gesture before turning back to Clint. 

Bucky doesn’t relax, not completely, anticipating more, perhaps even a clarification on the intel, on Steve’s continued absence. The opportunity arises fifteen minutes later as Tony ascends to center stage in his appeal for something called karaoke. Natasha slips to the back of the group then makes her way across the room toward Bucky, her gait unhurried yet direct in its advance, giving Bucky plenty of time to walk away. He doesn’t, and thirty seconds later, she sits upon the couch to his right, keeping both Bucky and the rest of the room in sight.

“Clint said you beat him at darts.”

Bucky stares at her a moment, thrown by the innocuous opening. He’d imagined something more invective, more accusatory for the man who abandoned her to horrors untold and then shot her twice. She lifts a brow at his silence and he looks away, swallowing, as he latches onto this the second lifeline offered to him in as many days. “Yes. Twice.”

Her mouth twitches, as though she were restraining a smile. She looks at Clint but says nothing to Bucky, and he wonders by her expression if she and Clint were more than friends. He doubts thought that she’d volunteer that kind of information to him, not yet, so he shifts in place and says instead, “Steve mentioned what you and he have been doing. Not the details,” he adds as she looks back at him. “Just that you were helping. Trying to keep Hydra away.” He sucks in a deep breath, her gaze too steady upon him. But he doesn’t look away, not for this. “I wanted to say thank you. I mean, I know you did it for Steve, but still—” 

“What makes you say that?”

Bucky looks away then, down to his hands, where his right begins to tremble. Pulling in another breath, Bucky grits his teeth and answers her, not in words, but in a glance, first at her shoulder and then her gut. He braces himself for the memory, for the past to consume him, first the windy hill near Odessa, then the screaming street in D.C. Yet the present remains unsullied by the past, by the memories coursing through his mind.

It takes Natasha less than a second to understand his meaning. Leaning toward him, she says, “I don’t blame you. For either of them. You weren’t in control of yourself. You—”

“Could have done something. I _should_ have done something.” He pauses, the glare of the child he saw in Russia bleeding through the woman who sits before him today. His breath hitches in his chest as he says, “You were just a kid…”

Just a kid, like the other girls there, and he did nothing. He hurt the Ten Rings, Bucky made them suffer for what they did to those girls in the cave, but he did nothing to those who held Natasha, too afraid of what Zola would do to him if he stepped out of line. 

“What could you have done?” she asks as she leans back on the couch. “You were outmanned and outgunned.”

“I don’t know. Something.”

Natasha says nothing. Bucky can’t read her expression, which shifts and settles as he protests her denial of action. She glances off to the side, at what Bucky doesn’t know because he keeps his gaze on her, resolved to his guilt, perhaps hopeful for her forgiveness. After a moment, Natasha meets his eyes once more. “You did help.”

Bucky frowns at her, his heart beating fast.

“The way you looked at me,” she continues, and he expects her eyes to go distant in memory but they remain here, fixed upon him. “It wasn’t pity. More sadness and anger. Not anger at me,” she clarifies, “which is what I thought then. That you were disappointed in me, in my performance. It wasn’t until the next person looked at me the way that you had that I understood.” Her eyes drift back over to Clint, where they linger. “You were angry _for_ me, not _at_ me.” 

She drifts into silence, now caught in the reminiscence. Bucky glances from one to the other and seizes the opportunity, his curiosity too much. “Are you and he…?”

Natasha looks back at him, a smile pushing at the edges of her mouth. “No.”

“Really?”

She tilts her head to the side, still amused. “Yes. Why?”

Bucky drops his gaze to the necklace near the hollow of her throat. The arrow glints in the light.

Natasha smiles then. Her gaze drops to the St. Michael’s medal he wears beneath his shirt. “We all have our talismans,” she says, catching his eye again. 

They did, their lights in the dark, the firm ground beneath their feet. His sits beside hers as they watch Thor boast in karaoke about being a dancing queen. Darcy doesn’t glint like the arrow, but she glows and Bucky hopes if she ever needs him as Clint needed Natasha, he has the strength to go toe-to-toe with the world and win. 

“She asked me to train her.”

Bucky’s head snaps back toward Natasha.

She looks past him, to Darcy, where she arches a brow. “She called Clint earlier today and asked for my number. I was already with him, so we spoke for a few minutes. She’s not looking for expert instruction. Just the basics.”

Just the basics because he tormented her with the horrors of Hydra, of how they would target her, of what they would do if they caught her. Bucky closes his eyes, her evasion on the phone earlier spinning again through his mind, Thor and his admonishment, how Darcy would follow him into the dark, how he’d drag her down—

“It’s smart.”

Bucky opens his eyes. Natasha regards him now, her gaze frank and steady. “She’s been lucky so far, but now there’s you, Foster, and Thor in her life, and Darcy would be a target due to any one of you. Stark’s got his share of enemies too, and she’ll be even more publicly associated with him. And he doesn’t always think things through before he acts. She needs to be able to defend herself.”

“That’s what Tony said.”

Natasha blinks at that. Bucky thinks it’s the closest he’ll ever see her to being surprised.

“Of course,” he says, sending her a crooked smile as he finally relaxes against the couch, “then he called me a popsicle and I called him an idiot, so you’re not looking at a whole lot of maturity here.” 

Natasha, like Sam, takes the olive branch he offers and returns his smile. “I never am. You have met the rest of the team, right?”

Bucky laughs then. “I have. I told Steve that I didn’t think it was possible for him to get a crazier team than the Commandos, but that he’s actually done it.”

“That he has. And speak of the ancient…”

She points to the main door, currently shepherding Steve into the room. Bucky reads tension in clench of his teeth and the line between his brows, reads the attempt not to be in the slow breath he pulls in and the tight smile he sends Sam. Scanning the room, Steve finds him, then Natasha, in the far corner. He pauses, his eyes darting from one to the other, then the lack of grief and bloodshed processes, and Steve continues on. As he does, Natasha stands.

“I’m happy to help train Darcy, unless you object.”

Bucky frowns again. “Why would I object?”

“You might want to train her yourself. Your skills exceed my own when it comes to combat.”

Bucky shakes his head before she even finishes. The sound of Darcy’s clavicle snapping beneath his hand resounds in his brain. He won’t hurt her, not again. Bucky averts his gaze, yet Natasha continues to stare. What she might see, Bucky doesn’t know. She makes no comment though, for which he is grateful. 

“I’ll let Darcy know that I’ve said yes. If there’s anything in particular that you think she should know, just tell me.”

Bucky nods and Natasha starts away. She arches a brow at Steve as they pass each other, but she says nothing. Bucky watches her cross to the other side of the room, snag a cookie and a beer from the food table, and then plop down next to Clint on the couch to watch Tony take the stage for karaoke.

Steve sits beside Bucky with significantly less enthusiasm than Natasha. “You okay?” he asks as he slumps down. “I asked her to wait—”

“It’s fine. Surprisingly.” Bucky glances at Steve and attempts a smile. “I thought she’d shoot me, or at least punch me a couple dozen times in the nuts. But we talked. It was… It was okay.”

Steve nods but remains silent, and this lack of a response unnerves Bucky more than his slumped shoulders and frowning brow. “You okay?”

Steve shakes his head. 

Bucky takes a moment before asking, the right tone needed, the correct posture, concerned yet still relaxed, this, secret knowledge, what he and Steve fought about before. “You want to talk about it?”

“Yes.” The lack of hesitation eases the apprehension in Bucky. “But not now,” Steve continues, eyeing the party on the other side of the room. “I don’t want to spoil everything.”

“And you sitting here stressed out won’t do that?”

Steve opens his mouth to protest only to snap it shut a moment later.

Bucky smirks at him. “That’s what I thought.” He stands then, reaching down to slap Steve in the knee. “Come on.”

Steve looks again at the party, at Darcy, who tosses a handful of popcorn at Tony as he called for Jarvis to give him a spotlight. “But—”

“It’s fine, Steve. She was okay with me leaving before, when Clint and Natasha got here. Plus,” he adds, smiling, “leaving early will give ‘em fuel for the old man jokes they love so much.”

At that, Steve groans. “As if they need more. I swear Natasha’s got a list of them as long as my arm.” 

“And now she’s training Darcy, so they’ll share with each other and it’ll get twice as long.” 

“Three times,” Steve says as he pushes to his feet and follows Bucky toward the door. “Because of Sam.” 

“Four, if we include Tony. Which we must. He’ll pout if we don’t.”

“Yes, he will.”

“But hey,” Bucky says as they pass through the door, “at least we can turn around and use them on Thor. He’s older than us.”

This finally pulls a smile from Steve. “That he is.” 

*

Back in their apartment, they change into comfortable clothes and pour some scotch. Bucky texts Darcy, telling her about Steve’s need to talk and to invite her and Sam up after the party winds down. He hopes that will give them long enough to talk and to help bolster Steve afterward. In the living room, they sit, relishing the silence after the delightful chaos of the party, and some of the tension tightening Steve leeches away. But not enough, his face still pinched and mouth still taut. 

“Okay,” Bucky says, taking another sip of the scotch. “Spill.”

“Rumlow’s alive.”

The revelation knocks the breath from Bucky, though he’d been prepared, expecting something dire from the moment Steve returned to the common room. The memories knock the breath from him, Rumlow always with Pierce, hovering on the periphery, his hand on his gun and his eyes on Bucky as he screamed and screamed in the chair.

Movement from Steve, him raising his glass, pulls Bucky from the brink of the past. He holds it there a moment before lowering it to say, “We thought he died. He’d been in the Triskelion when the Carrier went down. But apparently not.” 

He takes a long drink then, nearly draining his glass, which makes Bucky frown. Rumlow wasn’t good, but he wasn’t the worst either, not enough to pull this pall over Steve. “What else?”

Steve hesitates a second, eyeing Bucky, perhaps assessing him, his state of mind and capacity to endure the stress, then he says softly, “Natasha thinks he’s with Zola.”

Bucky’s jaw tightens. He looks away, breathing in slowly so as to not break his glass. “Makes sense. Zola always needed an attack dog.”

“There’s more.”

Bucky looks up at Steve. The expression on his face unsettles Bucky more than the stiff set of his shoulders or the grim line of his mouth. Steve smiles, but one without humor, with cold disbelief and bitter incredulity instead. The smile of a man struck down once more but this time struggling to stand. 

“Natasha’s been going through the files she uncovered from SHIELD. From Hydra. I know Tony has too, but Natasha’s been looking for specific things. Things no one wants Hydra to have.” 

“Let me guess,” Bucky says as he reaches for the scotch bottle beside him, “she found out that they have one of these things.”

Steve nods. He holds his glass out to Bucky, taking a more measured sip as Bucky pours a glass for himself as well. He waits until Bucky’s settled again, the bottle back on the table, before he continues.

“It’s called the scepter. Or that’s what we call it. It’s what Loki used to control Selvig and Clint and to fight too, some sort of energy blast emitted from it when used. Thor let it stay here when he went back to Asgard. Partly because he was already taking a weapon back to his world. But also in good will. He and Fury went at it about the weapons that SHIELD was building, stuff that Fury said was to defend the Earth against alien beings like Thor. So he left it here, to show trust in Fury and in SHIELD.”

“And now Hydra has it.”

Steve nods again. “Apparently with someone called Strucker. He worked for SHIELD, one of the task force assigned by Fury to test the scepter, to figure out how it worked. Natasha thinks he’s using it on people now, to do… to perform experiments on them. She’s not sure though. I tried contacting Fury tonight, but I couldn’t get a hold of him. But still…” He shakes his head then and expels a long breath. “This still looks bad, even knowing as little as we do.”

“It is.”

Steve looks at him. Bucky preps to explain, to tell what he knows about Strucker, but his throat clamps down and his hands start to shake. He fumbles the glass, barely getting it onto the table in time. Standing, he moves away from the couch, away too from the memory, but it pursues him across the room. Bucky waits for it to seize hold as he stops before the window, but the memory remains a memory, just the recollection of the German watching him through the window. Bucky tenses, feeling again the burn of whatever chemicals the man had pumped into him. He ran and jumped, climbed and fought, his pulse pounding in his ears, not loud enough though to drown out the scratch of the pencil on paper as Strucker made a notation—

“Bucky?”

“He was one of the ones who ran tests on me. The main one, with Pierce. He tried— he tried to make me better. A more efficient asset. More willing to comply.” Bucky grits his teeth and tries not to vomit at the rounds of brainwashing he endured, Strucker pushing him first to his physical limits, then when he was exhausted, broken, pumping Bucky full of chemicals, restraining him, and making him watch the show. His compliance, of course, would be rewarded. But Bucky couldn’t comply, not like Hydra wanted; the serum hindered the efforts, repairing the damage to his brain as it was wrought. Only the chair worked, and that only for a time.

Bucky closes his eyes, nausea rising within him again. Bucky, Natasha, Clint and Selvig, those girls in the cave, and who knew how many others both now and in the past, their wills stripped and stolen, twisted and broken by men who viewed the world as theirs to own, to conquer by any means necessary, no thought spared for the lives crushed in the effort. 

“I’m calling a team meeting tomorrow to let everyone know what’s happened.” He pauses and Bucky hears him take a drink, hears him sigh again, a soft one, heavy with exhaustion. “Thor’s… not going to be happy. Clint either.”

Bucky turns then to look at Steve. “He doesn’t know.”

Steve shakes his head. He stares down at his glass, and some of the hardness within Bucky fades as a sad smile appears on Steve’s face. “Natasha didn’t want to ruin this, him meeting you for the first time. And he and Darcy are friends. Natasha wanted to give him one night.”

One night, one brief respite before the resumption of the fight, the fight that never ended, no matter the sacrifices, the enemy succumbing only for a time, only to rouse again, stronger and more cunning, or new foes rising in the distance, perpetual phoenixes all. Bucky and Steve stare at each other, the weight of the moment upon them. The crazy team laughs in the distance, but when Steve eyes Bucky now, he does so not with the hesitation of before, the fearful anticipation of seventy years ago, of whether or not Bucky Barnes will follow Captain America into the jaws of death. Now, fear seizes hold of Steve, dread of a fate repeated, of falling into hell once again.

“Steve…”

“I can’t. I can’t ask you. Not again. I thought I could. Here, when you and I and Darcy fought, I thought that I could. Because together or not at all, right? But I can’t.” Steve pauses, his face crumpling, his breath shuddering in his chest. “Seeing you and her tonight, I can’t. You deserve that. This. A life with her. You shouldn’t have to fight. Not anymore. Hell, you shouldn’t have had to then. But I…” Steve stops again, snapping his mouth shut against the swell of emotion within him, the burden of guilt and of lives lost. “I’m not doing it again. Being selfish like that. I won’t.”

He throws back the rest of the drink, grimacing, presumably, at the burn of the liquor. As Steve reaches for the bottle to pour another round, Bucky straightens, shoulders low and chin high. He breathes in, deep and slow, before starting forward, saying, as steady as he can as he crosses the room, “Well, it’s a damn good thing it’s not up to you then.” 

Steve freezes at the comment. Bucky plucks the now filled tumbler from his hand and swallows the drink and his doubts. Setting the glass on the table, he says, his voice low, “You said that you saved the world when you came out of the ice, but that you felt like it wasn’t your world. So you didn’t try to live in it, to make a life in it. But it is. It is your world. And it’s mine too. They made it ours.” Bucky points in the general direction of the party, at Tony and Pepper and Bruce, at Thor and Jane, at Clint and Natasha, at Darcy and Sam, at all the people who reached out first for Steve, those who saw past Captain America to the lost man beneath, and then, inexplicably, wondrously, did the same for him. “They made it ours,” he says again. “They’ve given us something, a chance for a life, for a family. And we’re going to take it. Because we deserve it, both of us, _both_ of us, Steve, and I will be goddamned if I let anyone try to take it from us. So no, I shouldn’t have to fight. Neither should you. We already have, we’ve been to hell, and we died there. But we will fight, for them and for us too. And I want to do it with you, but I’ll do it on my own if I have—”

“No, no. No, no, no. Not alone. Together. That’s good. Let’s do that.”

Bucky releases a long breath at the acceptance by Steve. He sees Steve do the same, and Bucky almost smiles and he almost laughs, the sudden realignment of the world, of his place in it, here in this Tower, in this city, beside Steve and with Darcy, dizzying and giddying. Steve stands then and reaches for the glass that Bucky had discarded. He pours a serving of the scotch, pours one for Bucky too in the glass he appropriated from Steve, and then sets the bottle back on the table. As he straightens, he lifts his glass and looks at Bucky, and Bucky sees the same within him, a settled maelstrom, a firm foothold for the freefall to come.

“Welcome to the team.”

*

The sixth inning of the Dodgers vs. Giants game plays on the TV and the entire bottle of scotch has been consumed as well as a large frozen pizza by the time the door to the apartment opens and Sam and Darcy return.

“—and that’s when Steve threw the egg at his ass. He’s got, like, wicked aim, Bucky does too, so that’s why we gotta go with— Hey there, golden oldies. What’s up?”

Bucky cranes his neck back to peer over the top of the couch. Darcy stands at the threshold to the living room, still in her purple dress but with her hair up in a bun and barefoot, her sandals dangling from one finger. She carries a tray with brownies in her hands, and she smiles at Bucky when they lock eyes. 

“That’s why you gotta go with what?” he asks as the door clicks shut.

Her smile widens as she makes her way toward him. “Pancakes, dude. You and Steve are banned from future egg dishes.”

Sam appears in the threshold then, even more laden down with food than Darcy. Steve finally rouses himself from his Dodgers despair and moves to help transport the leftovers to the kitchen. Darcy rounds the end of the couch as they do and places the brownie tray amid the empty scotch bottle and pizza plates.

“As I recall,” Bucky says as she snags one of the brownies and sits beside him, “you started it.”

Darcy shrugs. She breaks the brownie in two and passes him half. “It’s not the timing of the act, bear. It’s the accuracy that matters. Besides, you like pancakes.”

“I do.”

They sit in silence as they eat their respective brownie. As she does, Darcy slumps back, leaning her head against the couch and closing her eyes. She draws her knees up and props them against Bucky’s thigh. Popping the last bite of brownie into his mouth, Bucky sinks down until he can set his head beside hers. Darcy finds his hand, his left, and threads her fingers through his. The warmth of her beside him and the sounds from the kitchen, of the fridge opening, of Tupperware containers being unearthed from the back of the cabinet, of Steve laughing as Sam fills him in on the karaoke hijinks that occurred in their absence, wash over Bucky, sloughing off the stress of the future and the weight of the past. 

“So,” Darcy says slowly, pulling his attention back to her. “I wasn’t going to ask, but the empty bottle of Glen over here makes me wonder. Is everything okay?”

“In here, yes. Out there, no. It seems you’re gonna get your first Avengers meeting tomorrow.”

Darcy says nothing, but Bucky feels her stiffen a bit beside him. He pulls back far enough to be able to look at her. “You okay?”

She nods as she meets his eyes. “Just nervous. I mean, not about the people. Because everyone is awesome, even Natasha, who I thought might kill me with her brain before I got to know her at the party. I just…” She huffs out a soft sigh and tries to smile, but the action falters, ending in her worrying her bottom lip. “I just hope I can help.”

“You can.”

The affirmation, as always, catches her by surprise. Darcy presses her lips together to try to curb the emotions within her, but a smile breaks still free. She squeezes his hand before lifting it up to lay a small kiss on his thumb. The tenderness of the gesture steals Bucky’s breath, it reaffirms the choice that he made with Steve. 

“Speaking of,” he says as he clears his throat, staving off the rush developing within him. Bucky moves to stand, smiling as Darcy pouts at the movement. He tugs on her hand, reaches down to clasp her other, and tugs on that one too. Her expression turns tragic and she ends up flopping over onto her side on the couch.

“Too tired. Standing sucks. Don’t want to.”

Bucky crouches beside the couch, bringing his face close to hers. “If you do, I’ll go to your place and get you your pajamas.”

She cracks open one eye. “And my iPod?”

“And your iPod.”

Her distress melts into a contented smile. “You’re a prince among bears, good sir.”

“I’m something all right.” He rises, tugging on her hands again to help her to stand. “In fact,” he continues when she’s standing before him, “that’s why I wanted you up.” Bucky eases back then, far enough for him to be able to hold out his hand. “Bucky Barnes. Official Avenger.”

Darcy blinks at that. Her gaze drops down to his hand, where lingers and then, to his surprise, it hardens. “I swear to God,” she mutters, her hands fisting by her sides. “I’m going to shove that ugly nameplate up his pampered _ass_. I don’t care how fired it gets me.”

Bucky gapes at the vitriol before the pieces fall into place and his confusion clears. “No, no, no. Not Tony. He didn’t ask me. Steve did. Or I asked him. Well,” he amends, his eyes flitting over to the kitchen entrance, where the ding of the microwave sounds, “I kind of told him I was going to whether he liked it or not, and he said yes.”

At that, Darcy’s head flops forward in relief. “Thank Christ. I was...” She looks up then and rubs both hands over her face. “I like Tony. I do. But he’s so wound up right now about Hydra, and he can be so goddamn persistent at getting what he wants that I…” Darcy lowers her hands as she meets his eyes again. “I just didn’t want him pressuring you. Not for this. For fighting again.”

“He didn’t. He didn’t the first time either. I had to convince him.”

Darcy raises her brows. “Really?”

Bucky nods. “It was my choice. It is now too. I don’t want to fight, Darcy, but this matters to me, this life, you and Steve and everybody else. And I’m gonna protect it in any way I can.”

“Well, okay then.” 

Now Bucky blinks at her. “Really?”

Darcy nods. “That’s all that matters. For you to be you and do you, so to speak.” She straightens her shoulders then and thrusts her hand out into the space between them. “So let’s try take two.”

Bucky glances down at her hand. As he does, he sees Darcy now, clad in her purple dress, grinning and giddy, like him, in love, and he sees Darcy before, egg in her hair as she proposes a handshake to commemorate their partnership, and then her with her arm in a sling, engaging him in another handshake, reeling him in from the madness in his mind, in his newly restored memories. She changed his life with each clasp of her hand, with each vow that she made, both to him and for him.

“Okay.” 

She picks up on the reference. This time, though, Bucky sees no flush at the remembrance, just a cheeky grin and a quick peek down, which, in contrast to that puzzling fog of a time in the motel, definitely stirs some interest in him now.

Lifting his hand again, Bucky clasps hers, keeping his grip light but sure. “Bucky Barnes.” The name rolls from his tongue without hitch, with the cadence of normalcy, of certainty. “Official Avenger.”

Darcy shakes his hand. “Darcy Lewis. Also an official Avenger. And an official person. Mostly.”

“Mostly,” he adds, smiling again, and as they stare at each other, Bucky waits for the tumult, for the whirlwind spin of self that he felt in Tony’s workshop as he vowed and begged and heckled to join the fight. But he feels nothing amiss now, no hesitation and no doubt. Instead, this, her and him and here and now, feels right.

It feels like coming home.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who read and commented and left kudos and encouragement. Bucky's story became a lot more involved than Darcy's story, which makes sense given how much farther he had to go to recover and discover his sense of self. I truly appreciate everyone who stuck by and waited for me to finish. I hope the ending was worth it.
> 
> I do have plans for the final third part, in which Hydra does make its return and Bucky must struggle with getting back in the mix, with trying to retain the stability he's fought so hard for in the story, while Darcy struggles with her decision to be in the mix, to be an Avenger and what all that entails. I'm not going to write it now. I need a break, having worked on this story since Cap 2 came out basically. I'm still going to mark the story as complete because it is, in a way, both Bucky and Darcy reaching the same place by the end of each part. Whenever I do get around to writing and posting the third, I'll un-complete it until it's well and truly finished.
> 
> Thank you again to everyone for all the support. This has been an absolute rollercoaster of a fic writing experience, especially with the wonderful response. Thank you.


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